What Goes Around...

Part Forty Six

A/N So sorry at the delay. Been on my vacation and didn't have great internet access. Plus for the first time in ages was too busy to write. This story is coming to a climax and it is literally flying on to the screen. Hope it doesn't disappoint! MZx

Chapter Forty Six

It was the last thing that Coop expected, her to both physically and verbally withdraw, but that was what she was doing. Did he honestly think that she'd open her arms and welcome him into them? He hadn't really thought beyond getting home and telling her, opening up. It was something he should have done a long time ago, now she hated him because he'd abandoned her at every opportunity. How could she trust him or believe him?

He didn't blame her, instead he smiled at her, "you're right. I have to earn whatever I get from you. I know that. But at least know that I'm better, I'm back on the same page. I'm going to work things out; I'm going to be what you need, what the baby needs. Ok?"

Her smile was soft, weak, it didn't have conviction behind it, "I was planning to leave you know. Go and stay somewhere else, anywhere else."

"No!" He reached out and grabbed her hand, "you can't go. Really you can't." He tried a smile, "I am going to prove to you that this is what I want, ok? Will you just give me a month, I'll make you realise that we need each other. Will you give me a chance? Let me prove I've changed, that I've woken up to reality. Please?"

She took another step back, "I don't know."

"You gave me an ultimatum...it took a while for me to process that. But I have, I'm trying to show you my choice."

She sighed, "I'm too tired to do anything yet."

Coop felt the grin fill his face, "let me get you breakfast."

He moved to the kitchen, and when he glanced back she was running her fingers over the photos and papers that littered the table. He saw her pick up the photo...his favourite photo. Milo, naked bar a diaper laid along the length of his forearm, looking up at his father. Michelle had taken it, in one of her happy, lucid moments. But they had been few and far between.

He loved that picture, but it had been too painful, hidden away for years.

"You should get this blown up. Hang it on the wall over there, it's beautiful."

He gave a half smile, "he was the light of my life."

She smiled, "he is beautiful. He deserves to be remembered."

He gave a nod, "you're right." She had the same thoughts as him; either that or she was feeding him with everything he wanted to hear. He glanced at her, looking at another picture, her face as honest as it always had been.

He had to stop worrying; he had to stop looking for flaws. She wasn't Michelle and she wasn't out for all she could get. She was genuine, she was good, and she was right, he had a long way to go until her treated her the way she deserved. As he started on breakfast, he knew that he had to stop jumping to conclusions and start trusting her.

Freya could cry at the memories that lay in a tumble across the table. She could sense the love and pride that Mitchell Cooper felt in Milo in every item, as well as the despair, the sadness. She was already attached to this minute baby inside her she'd be devastated if she lost it without ever meeting it. But to have held it, nursed it, loved it...to then bury it. She couldn't imagine how that was.

She watched him whistling as he whisked eggs, he made the best scrambled eggs; he finally looked happy. Those demons she'd sensed in him from the first moment she'd met him were lessening. She still didn't believe that he loved her, that he wanted HER, but she was relieved that he was sorting out the uncontrolled mess that was his brain. A clean slate...could she give him that?