Hi guys, it's been YEARS since I wrote fanfiction, especially for Charlotte and Cooper, but recently I've been revisiting them and my fingers were itching to tackle their life through the pandemic, especially since Charlotte is the Chief of St. Ambrose. I can't really remember how old the triplets would technically be, so I'm putting them at ten, as that's roughly how long-ago PP ended. This would put Mason at 18-ish. I don't know if anyone even still reads CharCoop fanfiction, but if you're out there, thanks for reading, and I miss them too!
"Death certificates, Cooper. I spent my day signing death certificates, hundreds of them, just from this week alone. In all my time as Chief…hell, as a doctor….I….I-" Charlotte's words failed her in that moment, as a well of emotion rose from her chest and lodged itself in her throat. God, she couldn't be about to cry, could she? Charlotte sniffed, then wiped her nose in frustration, desperate to hold onto the control she normally had over her emotions.
"Char- "Coopers soft voice whispered through the speaker in her phone. "I wish I was there with you." He told her, and she could picture the exact expression his face was wearing. She wished he was here too, but here she was, in her office at St. Ambrose, her sofa turned into a makeshift bed, a bag under it with clothes from home and her toothbrush.
"I wish you were here." Cooper corrected himself, and Charlotte could hardly bare to hear him sound so desperate for her.
"I know Coop. I wish I were with you too. I miss you, and I miss the kids. But I can't… I can't risk bringing this home and getting one of you sick, and the hospital needs me. I've never felt so torn before." She'd not left the hospital for three weeks now, there was just too much to do, too many staff to replace as they fell sick, one by one, or when someone was exposed, and she suddenly had to shut down a ward and send everyone home to isolate. Patients were dying, faster than she could keep a track off, and everything felt so heavy, all the time. At first it hadn't seemed too bad, she'd been working long days, but still going home to her family each night. Then it just started to spread like wildfire and she knew she couldn't risk it. If she brought COVID home and Georgia got sick….
No, she was always good at making the right choice, even when everyone else was too emotional to do so.
"Maybe you can soon, they're almost ready to roll out the vaccine and front-line medical staff are meant to be first. Or, they could get someone to replace you, even just for a couple of weeks so you can come back to us." Charlotte sucked in a breath as Cooper spoke, she knew he would be sitting in their walk-in closet for their conversation, as he always did when they talked, so not to upset the girls. It was hard for them, being away from their friends at school, and their mom. Charlotte called them every day, sometimes twice if she found time, although most days she didn't even find time to eat lunch, let alone talk to all four of her kids. At the start, he'd talked to her with the girls around, but it had been too hard to have the hard conversations in front of them, even the easy, lighthearted ones often ended with one of the triplets crying for her to come home.
"Coop, I'll ask, but you know there's no one to cover me, and –"
"Char, sweetie, you can't keep this up. You're exhausted, you haven't slept properly in weeks, and I bet you're hardly eating. The more you work yourself to the bone, the more at risk you are if you do get sick.""Tell me about the kids…how are they? How are you?" Charlotte asked quickly, tactfully changing the subject. She'd had this conversation with Cooper many, many times over the past few weeks and it never made her feel good.
"Fine, we'll talk about the kids, but I won't stop trying to find a way to get you home. Mason is in a bad mood today, he says it's because he hates doing school online, but I'm almost one hundred percent sure it's because of that girl he's been talking to." Coop said with a smile that Charlotte could hear in his words.
"Still thinks we don't know about her, huh?" Charlotte laughed, moving from her desk to her sofa-turned-bed. She settled herself against the pillows and waited for Cooper to tell her more and take her mind off the situation the hospital was in.
"I haven't seen Rach since breakfast, but I know she's somewhere in the house because she's been speaking to her friends all day in that high pitched octave that I think might bring all the dogs in the neighborhood to our house. Georgia worked in my office today, and told me that apparently, I have an easy job, just hanging out with kids all day. I swear she thinks I'm a babysitter, not a doctor." Charlotte couldn't help but let out a giggle, an actual giggle from Charlotte King. "And Caroline…she's still onto me to build her a treehouse in the backyard, oh…and buy her a dog." Coop added, sounding much more cheerful than he had a few minutes before.
"Still with the dog thing?" Charlotte asked, brows knitted together.
"A puppy would be very cute!" Cooper commented. Charlotte wasn't stupid, she knew that Cooper wanted a puppy. She also knew that he wasn't wanting to pressure her into making a decision while she wasn't home with the family.
"I think a girl in her class got one recently, and keeps bringing it on their class zoom calls, so it's not helping her to forget and move on."
"Maybe…but you know that as soon as the novelty is over, it'll be my ass walking and feeding the damn thing." Charlotte muttered, her tone light and teasing.
"Mmmmm…your ass." Cooper hummed happily, causing Charlotte to raise an eyebrow and smirk. "Stop thinking about my ass Coop, not when I'm not there to jump your bones."
Cooper groaned into the phone. "Now I really, really want you to come home." He whined.
Charlotte heard some background noise from Cooper's end of the line, and the voices of one of her girls. It was obvious that Cooper's talking spot had been discovered.
"Is that Momma?" She heard, then suddenly her phone was asking her to turn her video features on for the call. She accepted and placed the phone upright against the cabinet next to her. The video switched on, and she saw Caroline sitting next to her Daddy. She saw Cooper frown as he saw her, and she knew by his face that she looked like crap. A scrub cap at least covered her greasy hair, but there was no hiding the dark circles that had seemed to move under her eyes permanently.
"Momma, are you coming home? Is that what you and Daddy were talking about?" Caroline asked, looking excited.
Charlotte bit her lip regretfully. "Not yet baby girl, we were just talking about how much I missed you, and how Daddy's going to start building you that treehouse soon." She said with a smile, hoping the distraction would work.
"Really?!" Caroline asked, her face lighting up with happiness. Cooper looked surprised; he'd really not been planning to do anything of the sort. His skills in that area left a lot to desire. In fact, he'd struggled to put together the last flat pack from Ikea they'd ordered. Charlotte had had to take over in the end.
"Well….we should start planning it at least, you know, make the plans and stuff." Cooper told his daughter, flashing his eyes at Charlotte. She did feel bad, throwing him under the bus like that, but she'd not known what else to do.
"Does that mean we're getting a dog too?" Caroline asked, looking fit to burst with excitement.
"Hold your horses Caroline. Your Daddy is currently looking after four rugrats by himself and trying to do his job while doing it. A dog is going to have to wait a while, until we're all back together and things are normal for a while." Charlotte told her daughter, thinking she was being pretty reasonable. She didn't want to upset the kids just for Cooper to have to deal with the aftermath once she was able to hang up. God, she'd love to be home with them. Seeing Caroline brought it all back, everything she missed about being a part of a family. Family dinners, laughing at Cooper's lame jokes, the kids running them around in circles as they try to put them to bed, reading the triplets a bedtime story, or chatting about their days with them as they lay in bed, getting to make love to Cooper when they finally headed to bed themselves.
"Oh my Gosh, you didn't say no! I'm taking you to see Georgia! She's going to be so pumped." Caroline squealed, taking the phone from Cooper and racing out of the closet. Charlotte got a blurry view of her house as Caroline raced through the hallway to Georgia.
"Momma said we can get a dog when she comes home!" Caroline shouted at her sister, who was laying on her bed reading a book. Charlotte was temporarily glad to see her daughter had chosen a book over a screen or a device, and then took note of what her other daughter had just said.
"Wait a minute, I didn't say that!" Charlotte said, a little impressed at how Caroline was so much like her Daddy in being able to twist Charlotte's words. Caroline and Georgia seemed to have not heard her, and she opened her mouth to tell them again, when her pager beeped with a 911 page.
"Shit…I mean, shoot" She winced. Of course, it was then that her girls deiced to hear what she had to say.
"Ooohhh… Momma said a cuss word!" Georgia shouted, Coopers big, stupid grin on her face. Dammit, this was possibly the worst time to get an emergency page.
"Girls, I have to go, I'm being paged. I'll call you before bed if I can. Tell Mason and Rach that I love them, I love you too, and give your Daddy lots of hugs and kisses from me." She kissed two fingers, and then placed them on her phone screen, over both of the girls on camera.
"Bye Momma, we love you." Caroline said, waving at her Mom.
"Come home soon Momma." Georgia pleaded, blowing a kiss back to her Momma, before Charlotte hung up on the call. She took a second to blink back her tears, then headed to her office door. Donning a new pair of gloves and fitting an N95 mask over her mouth and nose, then a second one, she stepped out into her hospital. It was time to be the Chief again.
Cooper hadn't heard from Charlotte in a couple of days, or rather, he had, but it had all been one or two worded texts, but every time he'd tried to call her, she'd either been busy, asleep, or replied with "later". He sat at the desk in the office that was normally Charlotte's. She was the only one of them who normally worked from home and being here in her home office, he missed her. He was still seeing patients, but online, or phone consultants only. He'd had to refer most of his teenage patients through to Violet or Sheldon to help them deal with the emotions that this lockdown was causing them. Some of his patients had lost parents to COVID, and he'd even had two young patients pass away themselves. Charlotte may be the one working her ass off running St. Ambrose during a pandemic, but this full time stay-at-home Dad and full time doctor from home was no joke either. At least Mason had been sent home from college to do classes online for the foreseeable future, so when Cooper really needed a break and needed to shut himself away for a couple of hours, Mason was there to entertain his younger sisters with a movie or a game in the back yard.
Coop had spent the whole day in the office, Mason had a day off from classes and had offered to help the girls with their classes and lunch so his Dad could focus on getting through the piles of paperwork he'd been avoiding. He'd only seen a couple of patients online today, so now he was nearly completely up to date with his filing and paperwork. At least that would get Addison off his back until the next time he was late finalizing his paperwork. Cooper stood up and stretched his body, groaning a little at how stiff he was. Sitting down at a desk all day didn't agree with him, that was for sure. As he emerged from the office in to the ground floor of the house, he saw the triplets lounging in the living room together. Georgia was engrossed in a book, Harry Potter probably, Cooper guessed, although he couldn't see the cover. Rachel was sketching in a note pad, while Caroline held the remote for the TV and was flicking through Netflix.
"Hello King-Freedmans." He said, with a grin on his face.
"Hey.." replied Rachel, the only one who seemed to have noticed his presence. Cooper looked around, but could see no sign of Mason.
"Where's your brother?" Cooper asked Rachel, and turned his head as she pointed towards the kitchen. Cooper nodded, and headed in the direction of Rachels pointed finger.
Entering the kitchen, he smiled at the sight of dinner being laid out on plates, and the table was already set.
"What time is it?" Cooper asked out loud, as he checked his watch. Jeez, it was almost seven. How the hell had time slipped away from him? And how in the hell had his kids not caused a riot from hunger?
"I don't know how you've done it, but the triplets are the calmest I've seen them since birth." Cooper joked, walking past Mason and ruffling his hair. "You've even made dinner! Have I told you lately that you're my favorite son?" Cooper asked as he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer for himself.
"Well, since I'm your only son that we know of, I should hope I am your favorite. And if by 'made' dinner, you mean memorized your credit card details and paid for someone to bring us food so we don't starve, then yes…. I made dinner" Mason grinned cheekily. He really was his father's son. Cooper laughed, he didn't care one bit that Mason had used his credit card and ordered food. It was what Cooper would have likely done himself, had he not been beaten to it.
"Dinner you three!" Mason shouted at his sisters, dishing out the last serving of thai onto the last plate. There was one portion left and instead of sharing it out across the plates, Mason wrapped it back up and placed it into the fridge. "For later." He told his Dad, then sat down at the dinner table. After a few moments of no response from the triplets, Mason looked at his Dad. "You know, Momma never has hearing problems, I think that might be a quality they get from you." He said cheekily, taking a bite of his noodles.
"Careful boy, you also have my DNA." Cooper playfully swatted at his head as he walked past. Popping his head around the corner, he saw that not one of the girls had moved from the spots they'd been in when he'd left. Caroline was even still searching for something to watch. Coop knocked on the wall a couple of times.
"Dinner is ready." He told them, and to his relief, all three started moving. Maybe they were hungry after all. When Cooper walked back into the kitchen, Mason quickly put his phone away, even though he'd clearly been in the middle of texting someone. Coop frowned, but left it. If the boy wanted to be texting his secret girlfriend, then fine, Cooper would give him the time and space he needed to do so. As the girls all sat down in their seats, Cooper felt the usual twang in his heart that he felt every time they sat down for dinner without Charlotte.
While before the pandemic, it wasn't too uncommon for Charlotte to not get home in time for dinner, or for even him to be the one staying late at the hospital with a patient, it felt different recently. Knowing that she wasn't going to be sneaking home in the early hours of the morning, exhausted and just wanting to be held by him (or even keep him up even later), sucked. There was no other way to put it, he missed his wife and it sucked.
"I think we should go for a family walk after we eat." Mason said, looking at his Dad for support. Cooper scrunched up his nose, that was maybe the last thing he wanted to do tonight. He wanted to get the girls into bed and then crawl into bed himself and try to call Charlotte again. It didn't feel good not having spoken to her in person for a while.
The girls looked set to complain too, but Mason seemed prepared for that already.
"Momma said that if you want a dog, you have to start practicing walking it. She doesn't think you can have a dog if she's going to be the one walking it all the time." Mason told them, which seemed to change their minds almost instantly.
"When did you talk to Momma?" Cooper asked, a little confused. Mason shrugged; he was definitely hiding something. Cooper's stomach rumbled and he decided to leave pressing Mason until later. He seemed to know something that Cooper didn't.
After their dinner was eaten and the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, Mason rounded up the triplets and told them to get their shoes on.
"So you're serious about this walk, huh?" He asked Mason as he reluctantly put his shoes on. They hadn't gone on a family walk since Charlotte had left to stay at the hospital.
"Dad, Momma asked me to make sure we go on a walk tonight, she said that you're not getting out enough." Mason admitted. Cooper laughed. It was ironic, that's what it was. He wasn't the one getting out enough. Coming from his wife, who literally hadn't left the hospital in four weeks now. Well, four weeks and two days, but who's counting?
They'd been walking for an hour by now, and every time Cooper had suggested they head home, Mason had glanced at his phone and shaken his head. He'd insisted that Momma would want them to take a sunset photo at her favorite spot looking over the ocean. Cooper had reluctantly agreed, the girls had seemed excited, and he had to admit that he wouldn't mind sending something to Charlotte that would potentially bring a smile to her face.
Charlotte was home. Finally.
She'd gotten the word from the Board the day before that they had decided to rotate her with the Deputy Chief, both of them taking two weeks at a time. It meant that for the next two weeks, Charlotte was home. She'd still have her patients from the practice to deal with, but it'd be a hell of a lot easier to do her online appointments than trying to fit them in around running a hospital in the middle of the pandemic. When the email first arrived in her inbox, she'd wanted to call Cooper immediately. Then, struck with the idea of surprising him, as well as the reality of needing to decontaminate before being around her kids, she'd started to hatch a plan with Mason. He'd been very excited to be involved with the plan to surprise his sister and his dad. Charlotte had talked him through the whole thing, he needed to get the family out of the house long enough for Charlotte to get into the house, shower off any germs she may have carried home with her, and then clean every surface she'd touched on her way to the shower. Oh, and throw her hospital clothes into the laundry.
In the few days leading up to her release of duties, she'd been busier than she ever thought she could be. She'd had to brief her deputy, who'd been working from home on admin duties since the hospital went on lockdown. She'd also had to juggle surgery changes, ward shifts, and then just when she thought she was almost ready to catch her breath, the Board had decided to mandate a new type of mask to be worn by staff, so she'd had to set up times for all of her staff to have their face masks fitted and tested. She was exhausted, and she knew that Cooper would be worried that she hadn't called home in a couple of days. All the more to make a better surprise, was the only thought that had gotten her through.
Now that she was standing in her lounge, she was brought to tears, the familiar smell of her home was enough to break her. She wanted to throw herself down on the couch and fall asleep until her family was home, but she knew she had to decontaminate first. She'd already showered at the hospital to be safe, and she'd worn a new pair of scrubs home, leaving her bag of clothes she'd taken to the hospital there. She would use those clothes again in two weeks when she returned to take up her next two-week block. Charlotte tried to touch as little as possible as she headed into her bedroom to access the ensuite she shared with Cooper. Her heart fluttered when she saw the bed, her pillows positioned when she would normally lay. She'd done the same with the pull-out bed at the hospital, hugging them as she fell asleep as a poor substitute for Cooper. They really were so in sync.
Cooper carried Georgia on his back for the last five minutes of the walk, her slightly shorter than her sisters legs were tired from Mason making them walk so far, but at least the sunset photo had been worth it. Because it had steadily been getting darker since they left the beach about twenty minutes ago, Cooper didn't see Charlotte's car in their driveway until he was practically standing next to it. He almost didn't even think twice about it, but then he stopped in his tracks and let Georgia down to the floor gently.
"What's Momma's car doing here?" He mused out loud, brows fusing together in confusion. The girls looked up at their Dad with excitement. "Momma's home?" Georgia asked, and then turned her head to the front door of their house with the rest of her family, watching as it swung open. There stood Charlotte, freshly showered, and grinning from ear to ear.
It was Cooper who reached her first. She knew that she should let the kids hug her first, but seeing him in person, she couldn't help herself from melting in his arms. His arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her from the ground a little. She steadied herself with arms around his shoulders, kissing him hungrily. God, she really had missed this man. She brought a hand up to stroke the stubble on his cheek as they kissed and she was grateful that he'd not shaved that morning, the things his stubble did to her were unspeakable in front of the children. Speaking of children, seeing their parents making out was not going down too well.
"Stop kissing!" Georgia complained, trying to push her way in between her parents to get a hug from her Momma. Charlotte laughed and broke the kiss, bending down to grab ahold of the triplets as best she could. She kissed every cheek she could find and it wasn't long before she was crying again. Cooper even grabbed Mason and dragged him into the family hug. "God, you've all grown since I left. I missed you. I love you. How are you?" Charlotte rambled as her husband gently guided the group into off the driveway and into the house.
"How are you here!?" Cooper asked, his voice an octave higher than normal (although he was in normal range for excited-Cooper). Charlotte grinned and hugged Mason properly. "Thank you for getting them out for a while." She told him, kissing his cheek too. No matter how big he got (and he was almost as tall as Cooper now), he was still her baby too.
"The Board decided that me and Dr. Frasier can rotate. He'll be there for two weeks and then I'll go back for two weeks. We'll keep swapping until this is all over and we can get back to some sort of normal." She told Cooper. The triplets were all still hanging around her, each desperate to be as close to their Momma as possible.
"I saved you some food Momma, I'll go heat it up. You should sit down, you look like you need to sleep for a week." Mason told her kindly.
Cooper nodded in agreement and guided Charlotte to the couch. She happily sat down, pulling him down with her, and then leaned against his body as the girls bundled on top of her.
"So, tell me what I've missed." She told her girls, content to finally be home with them. Nothing would beat being home in person, not all the phone calls in the world.
A couple of hours later and Charlotte had eaten, and then the family had decided to watch a movie together. It had taken Charlotte until the opening song to fall asleep in Coopers arms, which in itself was not unusual for her, but this time felt extra needed. Cooper held her as the kids enjoyed the movie. He occasionally kissed the top of her head or stroked small patterns with his finger on her skin. Skin that he'd spent four weeks and two days longing for. When the credits started rolling, Charlotte woke up which made him suspect that she'd not fallen asleep as deeply as he'd first thought. She blinked the tiredness from her eyes and sat up, giving Cooper a smile.
""Okay, time for bed triplets." She said softly, poking Georgia with her foot playfully.
"Can you put us to bed tonight Momma?" Rachel asked, even though they'd all been relatively self-sufficient in their bedtime routine for at least a year now. Charlotte didn't even think to fight her daughter on this one this time. Of course she wanted to put her girls to bed, and she was actually glad that they still wanted her to do it even if she'd essentially abandoned them for a month.
"Go brush your teeth and get into your pajamas and I'll be up in a minute to tuck y'all in." She agreed, watching them as they all ran up the stairs. Mason cleared his throat and stood up to excuse himself. "I have an early class in the morning so I'm going to head to bed too. It's nice to have you home again Momma. We all missed you." He said, giving her a quick goodnight kiss and then heading up the stairs himself.
Finally, Cooper and Charlotte were alone. She looked at her husband and felt extremely content. "I think you may have gotten more handsome." She told him before wrapping her hand around the back of his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that if they didn't have three kids waiting to be tucked into bed one floor away, would have ended up with them both naked right here in the lounge.
"God it's even better than I remembered. And believe me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about kissing you again." Cooper whispered into her mouth. Charlotte groaned and attacked his neck with kisses, moving to straddle his lap. She was aware that she had around about a minute and a half of this bliss before she had to leave to head upstairs or they'd have a kid walk in on them. She'd gone ten years without a kid walking in on her doing the dirty with her husband and she didn't plan on breaking that streak anytime soon.
"Charlotte, you're killing me." Cooper gasped, also aware of their children who were waiting for their Momma. Charlotte leaned back to take a good look at him. She licked her lips and gave him one of her looks.
"Go upstairs and sort yourself out." She grinned, feeling his pants expanding underneath her. "I'm going to kiss our children goodnight and then…..well, we're going to make up for lost time." She gave him one last chaste kiss, and then heaved herself to her feet, missing the feeling of him already, his hands grabbing at her desperate to pull her back.
"Momma, if you're home, does that mean we're getting a dog now?" Caroline asked as her Mom tucked her into the bed the exact way that she liked. Charlotte chuckled and kissed Caroline's forehead. "Show me you can take care of a dog and then we'll have a conversation with your Daddy about it." She told her, moving over to Rachel's bed. She sat down on the edge of her mattress and kissed her, then gave her a hug.
"Good night baby girl." Charlotte whispered, tucking her in and handing her the stuffed bunny that all her girls had had since birth. Rachels was green, at least it had been when she was a baby. It was more of a greeny grey now, but all three girls loved them dearly still.
Last to tuck in was Georgia, who waited for her Mom with her arms stretched out, ready to receive a hug.
"I'm glad you're home now Momma, I don't want you to go away again." She told her as Charlotte bundled her into a hug. Charlotte gave her cheek a kiss, and then gave her daughter a sweet smile.
"I do have to go back, because it's my job, and right now people need the hospital more than ever. But I am home for two whole weeks, and we'll spend so much time having fun together you'll be ready to send me back. And I'll only be gone for two weeks at a time. So you'll always know when I'm coming home." She reassured the girls as she finished tucking Georgia in. Charlotte stood by the door and looked over at all three of her girls.
"I love you all, and tomorrow we're going to spend the whole day together, just hanging out, okay?" She told them as she turned out the light.
When Charlotte made her way into her and Cooper's bedroom, she saw that he'd pulled a little something-something together. The pillows were moved back to their original place, and he'd lit some candles around the room, and Etta James was playing softly. Cooper was sitting on the end of the bed, waiting for her. She made sure to lock their bedroom door after she closed it softly. She sent a quick prayer up to anyone who was listening that the girls would fall asleep quickly and not feel the need to come out for some extra reassurance from her. Right now, she wanted to reunite with her husband more than anything. Charlotte pressed her lips together as looked Cooper up and down. How had a month away from him made her this desperate for him? Either way, distance had made her heart grow fonder, and other parts of her….hornier.
"Take your pants off."