I have the next two chapters written and it makes me so excited to think about you all reading them! Also, there are two GIANT Easter Eggs in here (keep this entire sentence in mind when trying to find it). If you think you've found the Easter Eggs, please put it in the review section. I mean, I'd like for you to review anyway, but I worked really hard on these two!

Anywho, it's about to get real surrrrrius up in hurr. You think you know how this whole saga will end, but you don't. You don't. Muahahahahaha!

Hell, I really don't know how it's going to end exactly, either. Who am I kidding?

Readers, ENJOY and REVIEW... please! :)

Interstellar: Revivisco, Part II
Chapter 5: Tergum Consilium

"Cooper, I've got some footage of animal life out in the woods five clicks out. You might want to take a look," CASE said, walking into Cooper's office.

"Well, lemme get a look at it, buddy," he said standing up and walking toward the robot. "Whoa, nelly! That thing's bigger than a horse. What is it with antlers on this planet? A huge-ass horse with antlers. It's like an illuminati comedy hour." It wasn't an unattractive animal, though - definitely beautiful.

"That's not all, those micro bears also live in this area. I don't think the super-horses prey on them, though. I zoomed in on the mouth and I don't think their teeth could chew into meat." So they weren't like the beast/coyote-deers, that was good news.

"Might as well tell Amelia. She might try and grab one of those bear-things and bring it home, though." TARS walked in next.

"And Cooper, there's a storm on it's way. Not horrific, but there's lightening and it's going to rain a good amount. You're not going to get much accomplished tomorrow." Cooper laughed and both of them.

"Are you both my secretaries now?" CASE left the room to go find Amelia.

"We're programmed to do whatever you say, isn't that what a secretary is?" Cooper smiled and shook his head.

"Almost, but not really, TARS." TARS left the room, too, as Cooper went back to his desk. He never thought he'd actually ever want or need an office, but he hadn't even been using it for three hours and he decided that he liked it. "You two are more like children." Cooper thought to himself; he had been thinking on and off about those two fertilized eggs that they'd been thisclose to incubating before NASA showed up at the unit.

"Dammit. She's out there," Cooper said out loud as he got up and ran for the door. TARS was right - the rain clouds were coming in quick. Cooper pulled the new, tiny radio from his belt. "Brand, where are you? TARS says a storm's coming, and if you hadn't checked the sky lately, that's pretty obvious."

"I'm upstairs." He turned around and looked up the stairs.

"When did you get back in?" She had obviously just showered - he could smell her lotion all the way downstairs.

"About an hour ago. I was in the dirt, so I came in and immediately showered. "So it's going to storm?"

"Yeah, TARS says it's going to be pretty bad. Might be a good chance for us to observe, though. Who knows, this might be normal weather for this area." Amelia made the short trek down the stairs.

"I hope it's not normal. We'll have to pack up if it is. The crops can't handle monsoons every day." Cooper chuckled as he walked back toward his office; Amelia followed.

"Well, let's hope it's not." He sat behind his desk and she pulled up a chair in front of it. This felt oddly like her many, many talks with her father. "Find anything interesting out there?"

"Dirt is literally death that gives life. Dead bugs and worms, dead plants, dead anything - you name it, that's what makes dirt, well, dirt. We all know that, so why isn't anyone talking about it?"

Cooper looked at her quizzically.

"I mean that there must be tons of fossils under here that could help us find out a bit more about this planet. We didn't have the resources to do it when it was just us here, but we have the resources now. I'm not saying that we're going to find dinosaurs, but maybe we'd find concrete evidence of what was here before us. This planet has to be 100s of millions of years old, at least, just based on the fact that there are animals alone." Amelia began to make a mental list of things she wanted to look into. "I'm not saying that we have to dig right here, but I haven't heard anyone mention a dig. We could ask Pates about it when he comes back."

"Speaking of animals, did CASE tell you about the footage?" Her eyes widened in that way that they always did. "I don't think they're really anything to worry about, they're not our buddies from back at base."

"What do they look like?" Cooper smiled, trying to suppress a chuckle.

"Like really big horses with antlers," he replied. Amelia covered her eyes and shook her head. "But, the good news is that those micro bears are here, too."

"So one thing that we are just remotely familiar with. Hopefully we'll find some more animals," Amelia stated as they heard a loud crack of thunder. "Want to go upstairs and watch?" Cooper nodded and they raced up the stairs and into the living room.

"I always wanted to go to a beach after a thunderstorm and see if I could find any sea glass. It looks like a tree once you dig it all up." Amelia smiled as another bolt went into the ground, rattling the house. "It only rained once back at the unit, didn't it?"

"Yeah, just once." She was trying to count the seconds to see how far away the strikes were, if that's how the weather worked there, anyway. "I hope that the solar panels don't get hit." Their power source sat roughly 140 yards away from the house, wires running under the dirt to connect them to the house.

"All we have to do is send a message out to headquarters and they'll come and fix it ASAP," Cooper reminded her. It was going to take some time getting used to the idea that they didn't have to be completely self-reliant for absolutely everything anymore.

They watched the storm pass over, and Cooper couldn't help but compare it to the last of the plagues on Egypt. No, it wasn't anywhere near being exactly the same, but it was then that Cooper was reminded again that all of their pain and suffering had had a purpose.

Later that afternoon, they went out to see what kind of damage the rain had done. It was cold enough that the water hadn't been completely evaporated, so some of the ground was still completely soaked. "Let's hope this doesn't happen too often," Cooper said as he knelt down and touched the dirt with his right hand.

"It certainly isn't pretty," Amelia replied as Cooper stood back up and dusted his hand off on his jeans.

"You just told me yesterday that dirt was nothing but decay, and you expected it to be pretty?" He laughed as she rolled her eyes. They continued walking.

"I never expected it to be pretty. It's fascinating, but no, it's not pretty." Cooper shook his head in agreement.

"Cooper, you just got a message from Dr. Hart - she wants to know if it's okay to come in and check out the progress," TARS said over the radio. Cooper sighed.

"TARS, there really isn't much progress to show her. Tell her that we had a monsoon of a rain earlier and that it's got the land waterlogged. We've collected dirt samples, but that's been about all we've been able to do so far." Amelia shook her head and laughed lightly. Cooper clipped the radio back to his belt. "Good Lord. These people haven't experienced weather ever or in years... they don't know what a pain in the ass it can be."

"At least they're interested, I guess." Amelia turned back around to look at the house.

"Yeah, real interested. She never contacts you," Cooper stated as he looked up at the sky. He heard Amelia begin to laugh again. "What?"

"She has a crush on you! Maybe not a 'she must have you' crush, but it's probably like being in the presence of a god for her, like we've said before. I don't have that 'charm appeal' that you do, and I'm guessing that she's straight." That made him laugh.

"Well, you're not the cocky charmer, either. Hart's all about this." Amelia shoved him gently. "You jealous, Brand?"

"You wish," she replied, enjoying the grin spread across his face.

"Nah, you're jealous. Don't worry, she can't steal me from you." Coop sure knew how to make her laugh. "Ole Lynn Hart's tryin' to come after me."

"Just don't let Tolbert try and get me, okay?" she joked. Cooper took her hand.

"I'll try'n fight him off. You're mine," he reminded her, smiling, "and I'm not sharing you."

2 days before the arrival of NASA on the planet

"Only two?" Cooper asked as Amelia flipped through one of the many print versions of the fertilized egg profiles.

"We can't handle 10, Cooper. You know that." She didn't look up from the pages. "Two girls - ID numbers N1107T and M3031H. N11's egg donor had depression and the sperm donor had ADHD, but they were both apparently brilliant, making the combination worth it. The depression can be curbed - I'd say a lot of that was brought on by what appears to be a high-pressure education and job. None of their family medical histories had genes that would conflict with the other. For instance, you could have a fertilized egg where both mother and father carried the gene associated with breast cancer. There are no similarities here, and the ADHD isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"You all kept record of just about everything with these donors, didn't you?" Amelia nodded.

"We had to. Diversity, remember?" She grabbed another binder, flipping through. "M30's egg donor was a high up in the government, and the sperm donor was a university professor. That's promising - the sperm donor had bad eyesight, but the egg donor was 20/20, so we'll just hope that's how M30 turns out."

"We are appraising these fertilized eggs right now - aren't they all needed?" Amelia smiled as she closed the binder.

"But we need the best of the best right now." He agreed.

... this isn't like looking for a new condo.

"Are you excited?" he asked her. "I'm kinda looking forward to it."

Amelia shrugged. "I never really saw myself having kids, Cooper. Even if I'd wanted them on Earth, I couldn't have them, not without a lot of help from medicine that hasn't been practiced in oh, 30 years; 30 for us, at least. I'm sure we had the technology at headquarters, but I wasn't going to make them use it on me. There were people there who actually wanted kids." She paused, thinking to herself.

"So you would have never considered it - actually having children, that is?" She shook her head.

"I'd have to really weigh the situation. And, I mean, these will be our kids, you know? We're going to be all they've got." She took off her lab jacket and gloves. "Is it the ideal situation? Of course not, but it's a responsible decision. That signal a few weeks ago, that could have been, well, who knows what it could have been." She looked at him, concerned. "Are you going to be able to handle this? It has to be rough."

"I have to, don't I?" He chuckled sadly as he walked toward the binders. "I am looking forward to it, and it might be nice. I like kids."

Cooper wrote for hours that night, unable to sleep.

We just witnessed a ferocious thunderstorm - the truest example that nature is its own art form. This was handled in a whole new way compared to how we would've handled it in the unit, but an educated guess tells me that the region where the unit was wasn't used to storms such as this. We thoroughly enjoyed it to say the least.

There was so much to say about their last two days - how beautiful the land was, how thankful they were that it had all come down to this, and yet they had so much further to go.

Cooper looked over to his left where Amelia was sleeping, head down, face to the side as usual. He didn't get how that could be comfortable, but that's how she slept, nonetheless.

As he often did in the night, he got up and walked to the window and looked out at the stars. Doesn't look too different than home, or Earth, rather. This is home now. Just us.

Just them; the house reminded him of all the memories of his children and Jill. This is where they want you now, buddy, and you like it here, and you love who you came out here searching for.

He turned around and looked at Amelia's sleeping form, bringing a soft smile to his face. She is home.

Murph had to know that this was what it would eventually come to. She knew her old man well, even though he had only been able to share in a tenth of her life. He couldn't feel guilty about wanting to experience that again, wasn't it a natural human desire to have children? Well, for most people, just not Amelia. To him, parenting was natural - it hadn't been easy, but anything worth it is never easy.

Cooper thought about holding Tom and Murph for the first time, how both times felt so perfect. Cooper had decided as soon as they'd agreed to start incubating those two fertilized eggs that even though N11 and M30 weren't his genetically, they would be his children, regardless.

He couldn't imagine Amelia teaching a child to call her by her real name - she was practical but not that practical. Just because someone gives you life doesn't mean that they give you a life. Doesn't make you any less of a parent if your DNA's not there.

I'm not trying to play my cards too quick, am I? She'd hate that!

Brand... she's out there... setting up camp.

We just got moved, though; probably not the best time, although we would have hopefully nine months. Is that how long incubation lasts? Is it different than a natural gestation period?

Cooper had no idea how he could convince Amelia that even though they were complete, even though the population bombs were no longer needed, he was still interested in the Plan B they'd almost initiated. It could scare her big time, he thought, still looking into the sky. But she did say 'I love you' first. That was a big leap for her.

He knew that he still had a chance but that it would take a lot of convincing, but maybe if she saw how terribly he wanted this, maybe she'd want it, too.

"Did I kick you again? I'm so sorry," he heard Amelia say from behind him. Cooper turned around to see Amelia sitting straight up in the bed. She tapped her hand to an empty spot on the bed, urging him to sit down.

"No, you didn't kick me, I just can't sleep," he replied, sitting down on the bed next to her legs.

"What's on your mind?" What was on his mind? What wasn't on his mind?

"A little bit of everything I guess, just like usual," he muttered as he got up and walked back over to his side of the bed.

"Remember how you told me that my brain never turned off? Yours doesn't, either, apparently," she told him as he crawled back into the bed. "A blessing and a curse."

Cooper watched as Amelia put her head back on her pillow, face to face with him. "We got any melatonin? I'll go get it out, but do we have any?"

"In the medicine cabinet." Cooper got up and walked into the bathroom.

"That stuff does the trick, huh?" he asked as he opened the medicine cabinet door to find the bottle he was looking for.

"It's in the middle - everything is alphabetized." He laughed out loud at that.

"Of course it is," Cooper exclaimed as he found the bottle. "I only take one of these, right?"

"Unless you want to sleep for 16 hours, yes," Amelia reminded him. He popped one of the pills in to his mouth and put the bottle back up where it belonged. "That should do the trick."

"I hope so." He walked back from the bathroom and slipped back into the bed. "Okay, going back to our pillow talk."

"You'll be struggling to stay awake once that stuff gets into your bloodstream." He was happy to hear that. "You said that you have a lot on your mind."

"It reminds me a lot of back home, Amelia, here. It's going to take some getting used to." She could imagine that it would be rough. To him, it was just a year ago that Tom was 15 and Murph was 10, and now they were both gone - had died from old age. "Do you ever feel guilty that we survived?" he asked her.

Survivor's guilt was a real thing, and she was sure that they weren't the only ones living here now who had experienced that. There had to be countless people on the planet that had watched a family member die from some illness brought on by the dust.

"I have twinges of guilt, of course, but Cooper, we've had it rough enough, there's no need for you to put more pressure on yourself. I think about the what-ifs all the time, but those are just what-ifs." She was right - he couldn't live in a world where he punished himself for living.

"Do you know if they're going to incubate those eggs we'd chosen to start up Plan B with?" He was desperately trying to find a way to bring this up.

"I haven't heard anything. I told them what I thought they should do with the eggs, but that's really up to them now. Why?"

"I don't know. I was a little excited about them." Amelia smiled weakly, looking at him. He was such a caring person and Amelia knew she would have to protect him just like he had said he wanted to protect her. Cooper didn't build walls, ever. He's really taking this second chance thing all the way. Children, even.

"You want to do that all over again? I don't mean that in a bad way, but," she paused as she felt him grab her hand.

"I've thought about it, and I wondered if you know, would I feel like I was cheating Tom and Murph if we did this. I realized that I wouldn't be, that it was just the responsible thing to do, but now that all of these people are here, the population bomb isn't necessary, really. Just as I'd gotten used to the idea, it kind of swiped away."

"You want those eggs... babies?" He knew this was a mistake to bring up.

You poor, tortured soul, she thought. He yawned as he flipped to his back. "Just one egg... baby. Promise me you'll think about it - don't give up on either of those two. You or I can get up with headquarters in the morning and see if they still have N11 and M30."

This is serious stuff - he's asking to have a baby with me, not just get the population numbers up. "I promise." I'm not really the 'mom' type, am I? Oh, God, is that nurturing gene finally making its appearance? Shit.

Cooper fell asleep shortly after, but then it was Amelia who was awake for hours.

He actually wants this... hell, what am I going to do?

But, I mean, he must really love me if he wants to do this. You don't just plan to have kids with anyone in general, this is a commitment.

And he knows I actually can't do this physically, well, not naturally, anyway, so the eggs are really his only chance. Damn.

Dad, you asshole, you knew. You knew. I don't know how, but you did. No wonder. 'Plan A is a lot more fun? No it's not - wasn't to you, anyway.

Also, he is scary similar to you, dad. So smart, and resourceful, just like you'd said.

Jesus Christ, a baby.