Dear reviewers: were you reading my mind? I'm going to have to completely turn this story around. Although, I do have an idea for a new one after I finish up this series! ;) Veers off from the original story quite a bit, but I think it's worth exploring.

Thank you for the reviews and happy reading!

Interstellar: Revivisco, Part II
Chapter 8: Reprobaverunt

"Wow, Amelia! You were on fire! I liked it!" Cooper stood next to her. "It was sexy," he whispered with humor in his voice, putting a hand on her back. "As long as you're not mad at me I'll take it." Amelia laughed and looked up at him.

She smiled - a genuine smile this time - at him. "You only make me angry sometimes," she replied, resting her hands on his shoulders. "Not very often at all, she was just making me really mad since I realized how obsessed she was, anyway. Interrupting Pates like he was an idiot was the final straw." Cooper smugly smiled to himself, happy to see this side of her again, not directed toward him, at least.

"So, you are jealous." Cooper chuckled as he watched Amelia shake her head.

"No, I'm just very territorial." She looked back out the window as everyone left.

"Oh, so that's it," he responded as he watched with her. "You don't want her taking what's yours." She laughed again.

"You're not a possession but you are mine." Things like that made Cooper's heart melt. Amelia still hid a lot of her feelings even though she didn't realize it, and that definitely as proof that she was loosening up.

"Well, I already told you that you were mine and that Tolbert couldn't have you." Tolbert hadn't tried anything, obviously so much so that it was fun to make jokes about. Each lander-plane took off, the helicopter followed.

"The shield will be good. I suspect there's a radar incase one does get in before the shield goes up?" Cooper nodded.

"According to what Pates said, yes. They'll come by and finish it up tomorrow." Amelia was pleased with that.

"This sounds terrible and greedy and selfish, but I just think they owe us, especially you, for risking our lives in such a way that we did," Amelia stated as she walked away toward the stairs. As much as Cooper hated to think that way, like he was some hero, maybe she was right. "We've had so much terror tossed our way, for them, mind you, that it's the least they could do. I'm not asking to be treated like I'm a god, because we know how you and I both feel about that, but I demand respect."

"Like military rank?" That was a perfect way of looking at it in Amelia's opinion.

"Yeah, I guess so."

2 and a half weeks before take off of the Endurance mission.

Amelia had avoided him like the plague - her father might trust him, but she sure as hell didn't. Her, Romilly, Doyle, and Cooper were sitting through strategy meetings for hours every day, discussing the 'what-ifs'. Romilly had been her closest friend through all of this, having known each other since he was an intern with her father.

Amelia asked Romilly to stay around the conference room after a meeting. "What do you think of Cooper?" she asked.

"He seems to know what he's doing, or what he'll be doing. He's very curious about all of this. He seems to think that there is more to know that what we're being told, but there isn't, you know. I am surprised that your father would ask him to go, though, considering that he has a family." Amelia nodded, spinning in her chair. "What do you think?"

"He's curious about us, I'm curious about him. Something about him reminds me of a cowboy." Romilly laughed and got up from his chair to throw some scrap paper away.

"Maybe it's the accent, that drawl he's got." Amelia agreed that Rom was likely right. "I have noticed one thing, Amelia." She stopped spinning as Romilly walked back toward the table.

"What?" Rom sat back down, a smile on his face.

"He's either staring at who is speaking or he's staring at you." Amelia smiled sarcastically. "I'm serious!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Romilly." He only flirted with me that first time to try and get out of the situation.

"And it's not as if he's just paying attention to you, it seems as though he's fixated." Amelia began to spin in her chair again.

"Yeah, right." If it was true, no one had looked at her like that, at least that she knew of, since Wolf. "He's got too much going on right now to be interested in me."

Romilly smiled, knowing Amelia well enough to know that she didn't really tolerate games with men. "He's a good guy. If we weren't going on this journey, you maybe should've given him a chance. I think he would be a bit more foreword about it if we weren't about to leave."

She didn't know what to think about that. As a biologist, what could she possibly have in common with him? "Who says I'd have a chance with him or that I would want a chance with him?"

"Trust me, you stand a chance. We men don't just look at things for minutes on end like that unless we're interested." Rom thought about Taylor, the nurse in the medical ward that he had dated on and off until Professor Brand asked him to join the Endurance mission. He'd heard that she had married one of the guys in engineering, and he was happy for her. If it had worked out for them, she would have been disappointed in the long run, anyway. "I'm not calling you a 'thing', by the way."

Amelia didn't respond, still mulling over the fact that Cooper was apparently staring at her constantly. Why did it feel so weird? Maybe it was the spinning. "Doyle's noticed it too, just so you know."

"Jesus! Really?!" She stopped spinning again, realizing that her heart had sped up just thinking about him being interested in her. But Wolf, she thought, there's still a chance that Wolf is alive. Wolf and her matched, if that made any sense. Guys like Cooper were ones that she usually got in arguments with, and she'd already had one argument with him.

"Amelia, just accept it. There's really not going to be anytime to act on it, anyway." Rom was right.

Cooper watched from the bedroom doorway as Amelia got ready. She was quick about it, but there was something to be said about the difference in how men and women got themselves dressed.

"I think that whoever invented bras must've come up with them as devices for torture," Cooper said aloud as Amelia put a shirt on.

"You're telling me!" she said, slipping the shirt over her head. "And as soon as you find one you like you'll never find another one like it."

"I wouldn't know, but thank you for informing me. I'll keep it in mind. But those are comfortable, as you've told me before." She knew he was referring to her leggings as she pulled them on, and thought back to that moment when Cooper had asked about them only to tell her they made her ass look good. She'd taken to wearing them more often since then.

"Yeah, men have all the luck in clothing, or anything, really," she reminded him, "I guess it's different now, but you know how it was before everything tanked - if you were an educated white male, the world was yours."

"Wow, we went from talking about leggings to gender politics in fifteen seconds. That was impressive." Amelia smiled as she put on her socks. "So you're saying that your dad and I had it easy?"

"No, I just mean that you had it easier than most when it came to most situations. Sorry to take a fun conversation and tank it, it's just what I'm best at," she giggled as she looked at herself in the mirror.

"Quit looking at yourself Amelia," Cooper joked, trying to get her to leave with him.

"I'm not staring at myself, just making sure my hair was okay." She walked toward him and they headed down the stairs.

"Why are you concerned about your hair? It's dark and we're going outside." Amelia was ahead of him, grabbing jackets from the coat closet as soon as her feet hit the floor. "It warmed up today, you know, even though it's just a front according to TARS. We might not need the jackets." Amelia handed his to him. "Okay," he replied, knowing that her handing it to him meant that he should wear it anyway. Cooper watched as she put on her own jacket.

"But I'm going out there with you," she whispered as she turned around and reached to the top of the closet for blankets, "just for fun, not because I've got to get some samples to run into my lab."

Cooper smiled to himself, struck by the meaning of that statement.

"You know I don't care about that, right?" They walked outside and stood on the porch, the screen door making a thudding creak when it slammed against the frame.

"You would if I never did anything about it, and you thought it was cute - I saw you smile." Cooper nodded, silently admitting that she'd caught him. "See?"

Cooper gently took her hand as they walked away from the house.

"The shield's up, right?" Amelia asked, even though she knew it was - she just wanted to hear it out loud.

"Yep. It's up. We've got a two mile diameter. Thank God for Pates, right?" Amelia looked up at the stars, still trying to get used to their order.

"Yeah, really," she replied as they walked along.

They eventually stopped about 100 yards from the house and put the blankets down. They laid next to each other still holding hands.

"Have you been thinking about what I asked you to think about?" Cooper didn't dare say the actual word. He'd leave that up to her.

"I have been, yes. I'm not completely warmed up to the idea, yet, if I'm being honest." Cooper kept staring at the sky. "I didn't say I was totally against it, either. I just need to weigh out a few more things, because yes, we're in a more normal situation now, but we've also got the beasts to deal with, so that's something to consider. It's tough."

"Well, since we're being honest here, babies, kids... whatever, they are lot of work. It's difficult, but there is absolutely nothing like a baby smiling at you. Not because you smiled or did something funny, but because it's you, their parent, and they love you." Cooper let out a large breath, still looking into the sky. "I know you think I want this because I feel guilty about leaving Tom and Murph."

Amelia stared into the sky along with him. "I do fear that, yes."

"Well, maybe it's a little true, but wholly, it's not," he said softly, piecing the words together carefully. "But I do wanna make it right. The second chance... you know, I looked forward to watching them grow up, and I didn't fully get to. I never actually got to be a grandfather - God, that sounds weird."

"No, it doesn't. It's not your fault, it's not our-"

"Then why does it feel like it?! Why do I feel like I missed out?!" Cooper turned to look at her, and Amelia couldn't bear to face him.

"Because you did! But it was that or watch humanity fail, and you made that decision - the right one!" He had to know that she didn't have all the answers.

"Look at me, Amelia. Look at me." She stayed still, knowing that the emotions that were going to overflow might be too much to bear. "Amelia." She finally turned to face him. "I know that, I know that it was the right decision, but dammit, it hurts. Hurts every fucking day and I want it to stop."

"Cooper, I can't stop that pain, and bringing a new life into this world isn't going to stop that pain. Would it give you a second chance? Yeah, maybe it would, but it's not going to erase the past. You yourself have said we shouldn't forget what got us here." The mistakes of my father, and your daughter cleaning them up... it saved the human race. "Cooper, look, I don't know how this feels for you, I can't imagine what it must feel like. All of my pains, you have felt them, but I don't know what it must feel like to be in your shoes."

Cooper wasn't sure if he should scream, cry, or let the sadness wash over him like a flood. "I don't want you to feel what it feels like. I don't want you to feel this."

"Not a day goes by that I don't curse and praise my father for what he did." Cooper watched as she wiped a single tear away. "My dad sent me into space knowing that he would never see me again. I guess that you and I have a lot more in common than you thought. Just like you left your children to go into the unknown to save them, my father sent me into the unknown to save me."

Cooper had never thought of himself as similar to Professor Brand, but he could now see that comparison. "Two fathers made two similar decisions to save the hope that still existed within their daughters."

"I sometimes wonder if I was ever really worthy of this." Amelia looked down at their entwined hands.

"Do you regret being here?" Cooper asked her as she pulled her hand away from him. She rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows.

"No, and that's why it's so confusing!" she exclaimed, trying not to sob. "I curse him for lying to me and I praise him for trusting you with my life!" Cooper rested his hand on the small of her back. "When you and Murph left after you'd stumbled upon us, I was confused as to why my father thought it was a good idea to have someone who hand't piloted in a nearly a decade and a quarter to lead the team on the a mission."

Is this about to be an insult? Cooper wondered.

"But he told me that he had faith in you, that you were an unbelievably clever student and that your mind worked in a way that not even his could." She remembered the conversation as if it were yesterday, and in a way, it had been yesterday. "He said that I would be impressed with your resourcefulness and that eventually I would come to understand why he asked you to pilot the Endurance; I understood why as soon as you started to dock the lander after Mann, well, nearly destroyed any chance we had."

Cooper knew that this wasn't a time for him to talk, that Amelia needed to get it all out. "As soon as we were back aboard, I saw the man that my father tried to convince me that you were... that you are." She watched her thumbs rotated around each other. "You are selfless, accomplished, driven, determined, intelligent, resourceful, and brave." She felt her body push forward in a sob.

The silence prompted him to speak. "Don't do this to yourself." She seemed to completely ignore him.

"The fact that I can't give you what you want torments me, because you deserve so much more." Cooper lightly tugged at her back, signaling for her to come closer, and she curled into him. "You deserve someone who can give you the only thing I've ever heard you ask of me the entire time we have known each other."

"Amelia, listen to me: I love you. I know you aren't as strong as you want everyone to think you are, life has thrown you one curveball after the other, but somehow you've managed to hit them out of the park. You are everything that I want. I don't care that we can't do this the organic way, I really don't. I swear," he replied.

"I know that." At least she knew that he didn't expect her to do something that wasn't possible. "But I'm not sure that I am everything that you believe me to be. You have a much higher opinion of me than what you should." Cooper disagreed completely. "You have proven your love for me over and over and I'm a coward."

"You are not a coward. How could I not have a high opinion of the reason that I'm here? What can I do to make you realize that I am the one who isn't worthy of you? You were right the entire time, and I was trying to rely on only what I could see, not what I could feel." She continued to cry. "Amelia, please don't do this."

One week until the launch of the Lazarus Mission

"Don't leave me, please," Amelia whispered, laying next to Wolf. "Stay."

"Amelia, you know that I have to go," he reminded her. "I have to."

"You volunteered, Wolf." Amelia sat up in the bed, covering herself up.

"I can't drop out now, and besides, this is what I've been waiting on my whole life... what I've trained for." Amelia felt a hand in her long frizzy hair. "Amelia..."

"No, don't," she reprimanded, pulling her hair around in front of her. "I don't know why I keep telling myself that I can make you stay. You're not going to, and this is probably one of the last moments we'll have together." Amelia teared up as she turned around and looked at him. She'd miss his red hair and their smart conversations.

"You knew this was coming," Wolf said as they looked at each other. "Look, I don't know what I can tell you that will make you feel better; I don't know if there is anything to make you feel better."

"Tell me that you'll stay, that you won't leave me," Amelia begged, clutching his shoulders. "Wolf, I... I can't lose you. You're the only one I have here."

"You've got your dad." She shook her head.

"I can't tell him the things that I tell you, the things that go on in my head and heart. He wouldn't understand." Wolf smiled weakly.

"Why do you separate the two, Amelia? Aren't they the same?" he asked, confused.

"No, because my head says that you should go out there and my heart says that you should stay." She'd been trying to get used to the idea of him being gone.

"Your heart doesn't think, Amelia, it's just one emotion overpowering another," he said softly.

"Don't you think that I know that?! Dammit, Wolf! You aren't making this any easier." Amelia cried into her pillow.

"You'll move on. That's what humans do." She pulled up from the pillow, staring him down. "You'll meet someone else."

"So if I left tomorrow you'd just move on?" She got up from the bed, finding a blanket to wrap herself in.

"Eventually, yeah, I would." Amelia chucked a pillow at him. "Amelia!"

"Don't 'Amelia' me, asshole! And to think that I love you! Ha! Why do I love you? Who in the hell knows!" She began picking up her clothes and walked to the bathroom to get dressed.

"You and Dr. Brand seemed a little drained when you got back last night," TARS observed. Cooper rolled his eyes.

"Yeah." TARS caught up to him, much like a dog when its owner walks away. "Being human isn't easy, bud."

"I know, I see you every day." That made Cooper smile gently.

"TARS, I wonder what goes on in her head. Sometimes I think I know exactly what she's thinking and it turns out that I don't." Cooper expected TARS to give him a sarcastic response.

Amelia watched from the bedroom window as Cooper and TARS walked toward the solar panels. He was moving his hands as if he was having a conversation with TARS, and Amelia was curious as to what they could be talking about, but somehow she knew.

"How can he love me like he says he does?" she asked herself out loud. I love him like I tell him I do - what's the difference?

She walked into the bathroom and stripped down to shower. He loves me. Why is that so hard for me to wrap my head around? I have been loved before, and I've loved before, so why does this feel so different? Turning on the shower and waiting on it to heat up, Amelia looked at herself in the mirror as it steamed up - it was as if she was trying to have a conversation with herself.

This is something that he wants, and I can't let the fear of loss stand in my way any longer. I lost my mom young, I lost my first love only to find him dead as soon as I got here, I lost my father, and I lost Cooper only for him to come back from the dead, or so it appeared. He's not going to leave me ever again, I know that. The circumstances are very different now. Amelia walked into the shower and let the water run over her, pretending that it would wash away her fears.

The way he had reassured her that he loved her last night under the stars only then sunk in as true. He held her then and throughout the entire night as they slept, as if to tell her that every word he'd said had been honest. Cooper was a lot of things and a liar wasn't one of them.