Hello! This is Chapter 7: Praeteritum. To say that I have rewritten and edited this multiple times would be an understatement. This chapter has evolved so much. Keep the reviews coming, I've really appreciated them. They help me dig a little deeper in myself to make this story better for you, and I love making other people happy. Please review some more, and tell me what you think. Things are only getting better from here, in my opinion.


Interstellar: Revivisco
Chapter 7: Praeteritum

Little had changed between the two of them. They were back to work, only talking at night. She seemed to be a little less on edge, which shocked him, but there was still so much room for improvement, like how she hadn't even mentioned what had happened just days ago. Not so much as a word – she carried on as usual; Cooper, not so much. How could he?

He had taken no time getting into the idea of her, deciding she was really something when they met, then as time went on and he'd seen her ups and downs, he was even more drawn to her. He couldn't even look at her the same way anymore, and there was no way that she hadn't noticed him staring at her for extended periods of time, a habit that he had tried to suppress prior to kissing her. He felt like that teenager again, except this time, he couldn't seduce her into fooling around in the back of his truck. Amelia did things on her own clock, and she didn't strike him as one who spent too much time focusing on her personal life. Edmunds was the only guy she had ever mentioned, and knowing how closed up she was, there probably never were others, something he could halfway identify with. He never knew a day without his wife before she died.

They had grown up in the same little town, and she had been strictly a friend until he was 18 and she was 16. He was friends with her brother, and he knew she was pretty much off limits. It was Jill who made the first move, not Cooper, asking him for help with her math homework. Come to find out she was great with numbers and had only asked for Cooper's help so she could make a move. Red headed, sweet, too good to be true, captain of the cheerleading squad, straight As, church-goin' every Sunday Jill. They had found out that she had the cyst in her brain just as she entered her third trimester with Murph. Gone were the days of high-tech medicine, and they were forced to deal with nature, knowing that what could happen would happen, thus, Murphy. He looked down at the ring that he still wore.

Amelia was just the opposite, and somehow, he thought Jill would approve of her. Amelia was quick to correct, whereas Jill would let small errors slide if their ignorance made them happy. She'd like her because she'd call me out on my shit, he thought, causing him to smile. She had encouraged him to move on once he felt the time was right, but it had never felt right until now. Donald had been pushing him to find someone else for years, because he knew that's what his daughter would have wanted, for Cooper to be happy.

The chemistry that he and Amelia obviously had existed long before they finally kissed. Here he was, alone with her feeling like now was finally the time to act on Jill and Donald's advice. He wasn't in love with her yet, but he felt like he could be soon.

Cooper figured that there probably was never much room in Amelia's life for a relationship. Her relationship with Wolf possibly existed because of proximity, later turning into something more, then growing deeper once he was gone, once it was too late. Gone from Earth for 100 years, gone from her for what felt like 10, he couldn't imagine what it had to be like coming to a new planet, finding your partner dead. Even if she had expected him to be gone, Cooper couldn't imagine the feeling; at least he was there when his wife had died. Amelia wasn't that fortunate.

He had been doing the math in his head, adding up their similarities. They had both lost their partners some years ago, He raised Murphy and Tom without Jill, and from Amelia's stories, the little amount of her childhood that she ever spoke about, her mother had died when she was young, too, leaving Professor Brand to raise her. Something about the timing, the amazingly long yet short timing seemed to be pointing arrows toward her, like someone had set them up that way.

He knew that there was no way she had forgotten what happened – if anything, she was testing the waters, just like she had all her life, but testing the waters seemed like a slap in the face to the waves that they had already conquered.


"Cooper, I can tell your frustration levels are up," TARS said smoothly. Cooper frowned; frustrated was an understatement.

"You could say that," he replied, hearing the door click open.

There she was, coming in from the day. She looked like her usual exhausted self, covered in sweat that had turned into an iridescent glow, something that he was sure that only Amelia could pull off. Cooper was sitting at one of the desks, writing again.

She leaned up against the wall. "Muscle spasms," she explained, closing her eyes. "I've been having them all day."

He got up from the desk, walking over to her. "You want a muscle relaxer?" She nodded, still leaning against the wall, waiting on Cooper to come back from the medicine cabinet. He really wanted to make some joke about relieving tension, but he wasn't willing to ruin his chances for right now. He grabbed the pill bottle and came walking back to her. "Here ya go," he said opening the bottle.

"Cooper," she muttered, dry swallowing a pill. He'd been with her long enough to know that's how she took her pills – smart effort on her part to conserve the stored, purified water that they had, still a little too in shock from the whole experience to taste the water from this planet. "Thank you."

"Ah, no problem," he replied, eyeing her. "So how long has this been going on?" She shrugged her shoulders, half frowning.

"Really my whole life. I remember my eyelids twitching in pre-school," she answered, "but these, in my back, it just started within the past two weeks." She reached behind her in an attempt to rub out the pain in her back.

"That's because your brain never stops," he said, laughing, taking hold of her shoulders, turning her around. "Murph was like that, too. Couldn't sleep because her mind never, ever turned off."

"That's a perfect way of describing it," she half-whispered, straightening up, his hands on her back making her focus.

"Now where exactly is this going on?" he questioned. She was happy he couldn't see her cheeks turning pink.

"Lower right," she said, his hands digging into her back. "Ow! God, Cooper! That hurts!"

"No pain, no gain, Brand," he chuckled, "maybe I could go a little lighter, though." The pain had weakened, and between his hands and the soon-to-activate pill, she probably would be feeling better in no time.

She wasn't sure if she liked Cooper taking care of her. No one had ever had to take care of Amelia Brand, and she had the emotional battle scars to prove it. She was tough! She wouldn't have come out here if she wasn't.

"I'm going to go through some notes," she said, turning around and attempting to walk further into the unit, but Cooper gently stopped her.


"Now hold on," he countered, smiling, holding her still. "Why ya leaving so soon?" She tried to suppress a smile, looking down at the ground. For someone who was so great at confrontation, she sure could be shy sometimes. Was she blushing?

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, looking back up at him. He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that he knew exactly what he was doing. She was definitely blushing.

"Practicing my 'cocky charmer' skills, as you so kindly called them," he replied, leaning down to whisper in her ear. He waited a moment before speaking again. "They working?"

"Eh," she retorted, shrugging, "you might need some fine tuning." He smirked. I'll show you fine tuning. He put his hands on her waist, taking his time to feel the way her hips flared out. His lips got dangerously close to hers, before reeling back, teasing her.

"What about now?" She lightly grasped his shoulders, admiring the muscle tone she could feel through his shirt. He was doing absolutely everything he could do except kiss her, trying to coax her into continuing.

"Maybe," she murmured, trying not to laugh, not sure what to do next.

He saw her smile, her lithe form caving into him, his muscular, warm arms wrapping around her. "Just maybe?" He pulled back so he could look at her before he kissed her. "Maybe?" he asked, leaning down to meet her lips. She willingly obliged to the advance, craning one arm around his neck. "Well, I'm going to be an expert by the time I'm through with you," he sighed, quickly going back to what he had stalled. His hands made their way underneath her shirt to her ribcage, his thumbs raking across each rib. He was going sickeningly slow, testing her limits even further.


This was like words turned into actions, words made into a reality. She knew he was going slow on purpose, just to drive her crazy. Her hands found their way under his shirt just slightly, her fingers as cold as ice. "You tryin' to play a game with me, Amelia?" he asked her, breaking their kiss. He pinned her against the wall, kissing her again. He really knows what he's doing, she thought.

Whatever feelings she was still harboring for Wolf, she knew she'd have to tuck them into a dusty corner in her brain. He was always going to be with her to some extent, but Cooper was here, alive, and he was different than anyone else she'd ever met. Wolf was scientific to a fault, basing everything he did off of logic – he'd never viewed what they had as driven by some otherworldly force, but as human instinct. Amelia had felt the same way about love until he left, never to return. She saw in Wolf something she admired and wanted to emulate, and Cooper, while they were nowhere near love in her eyes, not yet, represented something that she never got from Wolf and had always wanted. Despite being an amazing man, he was never really wired for heavy feelings, even when they were in the height of their relationship, but Cooper felt things, heard things, and saw things like no one else she had ever met. On Earth, she had tried to move on, her father constantly reminding her that she had known all of her life that relationships like this didn't work for people like Wolf. He was first and foremost an explorer who needed to put humanity in front of his emotions.

Then there was Cooper, whose every move was completely driven by his emotions, not logic – the opposite of the first man she ever loved and desired, and some part of her thought that her father had known that. If he was looking for people to send out and colonize, never to come back, he'd want to send people with a strong desire to survive, not people that had been prepared to die for years, awaiting death without fear.

How had he ended up in this good of shape? How could he be here, after living the life he had lived, and be in such a fantastic mood most of the time? Because he wanted to be here with you, she told herself. No matter how many times she had silently repeated that idea, she never fully believed it. He came back because she told him to, she was sure of it - out of respect for the memory of Murphy. There could be no other logical reason, and she knew Cooper was a man built of dignity, someone who would risk his own life if that meant to save someone else or millions. She had witnessed it.

If she had told herself when they first met that she would doing this with Cooper, let alone on another planet, she would have laughed. She had figured that if she lived through the mission and Wolf was indeed dead, she would never become vulnerable to another soul ever again, more than comfortable with that decision. Her father had never loved again after her mother died, and he went on just fine after a reasonable amount of time grieving. With Cooper, things felt different - his mere presence was making her want to be more emotionally available. But there is no way he's actually into you, she told herself. She was right, she had to be. There could be no way that Cooper truly wanted her.

"Cooper, Cooper," she said breathlessly, trying to get his attention.

"Yes?" he asked, his eyes looking that same way they did whenever he was able to make her laugh.

She stopped him, holding his face in her hands. "I can't do this."


She had gone off to her room, shutting the door just like before.

"This seems familiar," he said to himself, sitting back at his desk, continuing to write. He knew that she trusted him, so that wasn't an issue. Trust was required here.

So what was stopping her? Edmunds, maybe? Might be more than a little difficult for her with him being buried practically right out the door. "The backseat sounds mighty fine right about now," he whispered to himself. She had seemed really into it right up until she had told him she couldn't continue.

Cooper stayed at the desk, thinking she'd eventually leave her room, eventually giving up. He was glad that CASE and TARS had been outside being useful while they were busy– they were like children you had to sneak around.

He left the desk, turning off the light, walked back into his own room, and wished that there was some obvious solution to his problem.


"Good morning," she said softly, not looking at him as she walked by quickly. He got up from the table, catching up to her, knowing damn good and well she was hurrying to try and avoid this conversation with him.

"You think we could talk about last night?" he asked, Amelia stopped, finally looking at him before closing her eyes.

"Not right now, I just-" she stammered, "I really- Jeez." She was wondering how she could best word this.

"It's because Edmunds is buried just feet away, right? Honestly, I get that. It is weird," Cooper responded, watching her, and suddenly grinning at the next thought that popped into his mind . "I've been creative before, I can get creative again." They were both quiet, Cooper waiting for Amelia to speak, and Amelia trying to find the words.

"No, it's not that," she retorted, "I hadn't even thought of that, actually." And now I've put the idea in her head. Great.

"What's the problem then?" She began to shake her head, knowing that whatever she did say, it would come across as negative toward him, and he was certainly not the issue. "If it was too much last night, moving too fast, I can wait - I get how that could be difficult after all you've been through recently."

"No, no, that's not it. What's moving too fast when you're 119 years old?" she laughed, slightly forgetting the weight of the subject at hand. "I'm the problem. I haven't done this in years," she explained, nervousness in her voice. She laced her fingers together, still too embarrassed to look at him.

"It's like learning to ride a bike – you never forget." He saw her smile, taking that as a good sign.

"I haven't forgotten, Cooper," she said, still smiling, glancing at him before staring out a window. Conversations involving her emotions had always been difficult for her, growing up in an environment that reinforced the idea that relationships stood in the way of your progress, and also stood in the way of your ability to think clearly. Her father seemed to be the only person that could actually balance the two. Maybe that's why Wolf had been so confusing.

"Then what's the concern? I don't understand-" she stopped him, taking in a huge gulp of air.

"It's not you, trust me." That's nice to hear, Cooper thought. "It's me, I just," she silenced herself.

"You just what, Amelia?" He was hanging on her every word – words that could either be bombs or manna.