Dear readers, thank you again for the lovely reviews. I hope you all like this chapter. It's a bit of a building chapter, but that's just how it has to be. I've had this one written for about three weeks, so I'm excited to see what you guys think! Please review and thank you in advance!
Interstellar: Revivisco, Part II
Chapter 9 - Exspiravit
Amelia got out of the shower and wrapped herself in her robe. She thought she could hear Cooper downstairs, but she wasn't sure until she heard the zipper pull on his coat 'clink' against the bannister. That answers that question.
"Amelia?" Cooper half-yelled as he walked up the stairs.
"I'm up here." He walked into their room and sat down on the bed. "I saw you and TARS went outside."
"Wanted to check on the panels, see how they were holding up. Speaking of holding up, how are you doing today?" She smiled sadly as she walked toward the dresser.
"I'm sorry about last night, I guess just hearing you upset made me upset, too. You handle your emotions better than I do." Cooper didn't move and watched as she walked from the dresser into the closet.
"You have nothing to be sorry about. You were being honest with me," he replied, the sad expression on her face not going away.
"And you were being honest with me. You always are." Amelia untied her robe and dressed.
"Are you going to semi-avoid me like this all day?" She looked up at him slowly, trying to decide if that had been a joke or not. By the look on his face, she decided that it hadn't been.
"I don't want to, I'm just a little ashamed by the way I acted last night. I don't know how you can even stand to talk to me right now to be honest." Cooper didn't know what he was going to have to do to convince her that she was his equal. He knew she had believed that before, but since he had suggested that they incubate one of those eggs everything had seemed to go downhill.
"Why wouldn't I want to be around you?" She slowly walked over and sat next to him on the bed. He put his hand on her knee, running his thumb across it.
Cooper slouched and looked down at the floor and decided that he was never going to mention a baby again. If no baby meant keeping her happy, it was worth it. "Thank you for last night." He had held her to him all night long - concerned about her but selfishly trying to make sure she didn't leave.
"I'm going to take care of you for the rest of our lives, you know that, right?" He watched as she nodded. "Good." She was silent, trying to think of all the ways that she didn't measure up. "We are on equal ground here, Amelia," he exclaimed as if he could read her mind. "Remember when you told me that none of these people understood you? They don't understand me, either. You are the only one who understands my journey."
"And you are the only one who understands mine," she replied breathlessly.
"Yes," Cooper whispered into her ear. "If we believe that we are not worthy of each other, that must mean we are worthy, right? You know, two negatives make a positive." He was thrilled to hear her laugh.
2 weeks until the launch of the Endurance mission
Amelia had been in the lab with the frozen embryos for hours, reading through some of the profiles. "Egg donor is a former professor at Yale, as is the sperm donor," she said out loud.
"Talking to yourself now?" She jumped in her chair and looked up from the page to see Cooper smiling. "Didn't mean to scare ya."
"What are you doing in here?" Amelia asked, trying to pretend that she was reading again.
"Well, hello to you, too, Dr. Brand." She finally closed the binder and turned toward him. "I just wanted to learn a little more about this," he pointed around, "incubation thing."
She appeared uninterested, but spoke. "What do you want to know?" He walked closer to her and he still had that smile on his face.
"I'm not up on this technology here," he began tapping the wall, "I don't understand how that could work. What about the cord? Where's it supposed to connect? If you've learned how to clone the female reproductive system, that's impressive." Amelia genuinely laughed, got down from her chair and motioned for him to follow her.
"The fertilized eggs each get put into a bag made of cloned tissue that's almost like a uterus, or as close to one as we're going to get right now. That's a delicate process of placing them there, as well." She stopped at a shelf-like structure that had five 1-foot wide tubes that looked to be around 1 foot and a half deep. You could see the inside of each tube, only covered by glass.
"You put 'em in here?" he asked. Amelia nodded and began to explain.
"So we put a bag in each tube, and we have more of these, by the way, this is just one unit. Anyway, we put a bag in each tube, but first we'll line the tubes with cloned tissue that will embed itself to those little cutouts that are inside." Cooper looked into a tube, looking at what she was talking about. "That tissue will protect the bag, give it some cushion, like a human body would, and that bag will also allow for the cord to connect to the cushion tissue. This right here," she pointed to the side of the tube, "is where we'll feed the embryo the nutrients it needs to grow. This unit also can heat itself, providing the essential warmth the embryo needs, too."
"Have you all done this before?" Cooper didn't seem to be too shocked by anything she had said.
"There were a few female employees here that were having trouble conceiving, and they volunteered to donate their eggs to see if this would work. We got their partners in here or used donated sperm, and low and behold, it worked. It was really amazing to watch." Cooper looked back into a tube and then at Dr. Brand.
"You nerd out on this, don't you?" He chuckled at his own joke, and looked around the room to avoid her eyes.
"I've only devoted the last nine years to it, so yes, I do." He immediately regretted his words.
"I didn't mean that in a bad way," he retorted, trying to make sure that came across as light and soft as possible.
"I know," she replied as she walked past him and back toward her desk area.
"You were 25 when you started working on this?" Cooper seemed to be amazed. Pretty accomplished for a 25 year old.
"Yeah, once Laura Miller was gone I took over, but she's the one who developed the idea. She sent it down to biological engineering and they worked on it for about three years until they perfected it. I'm really just the messenger." She turned around to see him smiling, as if he was impressed. "What?"
"It's just kind of amazing, you know. You all have been able to take the miracle of conception and birth and turn it into something out of Area 51." She knew that he just had a bad way of describing things and that he wasn't trying to offend her. Remain calm, Amelia. He just wants to know how this works. "But I guess this contraption is a miracle itself, and anything it made would be miracle."
"I don't know if I would call conception and childbirth a miracle," she replied with a laugh, leaning up against the wall, five feet away from him. "It's really pretty simple. It happens all the time." Cooper lightly laughed to himself. "Children aren't miracles, they're part of the cycle. We're all part of the cycle."
"Well, if you ever have children of your own, Dr. Brand, let me know if you still believe it's just 'part of the cycle', as you said." She smirked, trying to hide the look that she feared might pop up on her face. No, I'll never get to figure that out on my own. Amelia looked back at him, trying to push what Rom has said from her mind.
It can't be that bad. And he's done this before. He knows what to do, I can learn.
Amelia looked up from her research and across the table at Cooper. They'd just finished dinner and he was back to writing. She was glad he'd found a hobby he enjoyed. He seemed to be deep into whatever he was writing about; maybe he was writing about their last few days. "I see you lookin' at me."
"I was," she replied as he looked up from the tablet. "You just looked like you were enjoying yourself."
"I still am." She smiled, and shyly took her gaze away from his eyes.
"I didn't mean to disturb you." Cooper flipped the cover back onto the screen.
"You didn't disturb me." Amelia was glad to hear it. "How's the dirt comin'?" She giggled as she looked back down at her papers.
"We're going to have to really work on making sure this soil is full of nutrients. I would like to look at some moss, but I'm a little scared to go back there." That dead horse-creature was enough for her to know that the woods weren't safe.
"You don't have to go out there alone, Amelia." She knew that. "And they don't come out in the daylight."
"But it's still terrifying," she replied as she pushed the stack to the side.
"I know," Cooper said gently, looking at her with caring eyes. That look was enough to make her weak at the knees. How did he still keep her swooning, and better yet, when had she become a swooner? "We haven't tested out that screen yet if you want to check that out."
"Yeah, sure." What was he planning on?
"We could watch a movie, if I remember how to even watch a movie." She giggled as she got up from the table.
She carried the papers to the kitchen island. "Is wine a good substitute for popcorn?" Cooper walked toward the fridge and pulled out a bottle.
"What a good observation." She walked toward the cabinet with the glasses and took out a highball and wine glass "Bring those over here."
Amelia walked toward him with the glasses. "I'll watch anything that isn't scary," she explained.
"Considering the last time we were able to watch a movie was when I was 15, which means you were 9 or 8, how do you know you wouldn't like scary movies?" The government had swept through every home, taking whatever televisions, computers and cell phones they could get their hands on to use and make supplies for the war. The only computers still in existence by the time they had left were either government property, and a few people, Cooper being one of them, had safely hidden their laptops from being taken. After the fall of the military, he'd been able to get his hands on a few more.
"I just know." Amelia thought about how often her father took her to the movies when she was still little. They watched every cartoon movie that came out. Cooper poured the the wine in the glass before putting a few ice cubes in the highball glass for whisky. "Let's go try this thing out," Amelia said as she picked up her glass and walked up the stairs. Cooper silently followed.
"I took a girl to watch a scary movie once. We were 14 and snuck in. It was rated R, so we weren't getting in otherwise." Amelia turned around as soon as she got to the top of the stairs.
"Of course you did!" Cooper smiled.
"My dad would've been furious if he'd found out." Amelia sat down on the couch, smiling at him.
"Do you remember her name?" Cooper shook his head. "I bet you pissed off a lot of girls."
"I thought you'd already decided that a while ago," Cooper replied as he sat down next to her. He picked up the tiny remote from the coffee table. "Let's see if Pates knows what he's talking about."
"I'm sure he does." Cooper pressed a button and watched as a screen appeared from lights in a small pod. Cooper pushed a few more buttons, finally getting to the library.
"Pates says that everything you can imagine is here, like the internet we grew up with, well, that I did." Amelia relaxed into the couch.
"I miss the internet," Amelia said with a sigh, causing Cooper to chuckle.
"Do you even remember what you did on the internet? You were rather young, you know." Amelia put her glass down on the coffee table.
"I was nine... I wasn't a baby. I played a lot of puzzle games." He could see a young Amelia being obsessed with Sudoku or something like it. "What did you do?"
"I think we've clarified what I was up to during my teenage years, Dr. Brand." Amelia began to laugh so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"Why did I even ask? I should have known!" Cooper laughed back and put down the remote. "How had I not guessed that?"
"I can try and find one of those on here if that's what you're interested in," he suggested jokingly. She shook her head furiously, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
"No, no, no, no, no!" They both reached for the remote, Amelia getting to it first, continuing to laugh. "No!" She stuffed the remote into her shirt.
"Just because you put it there doesn't mean I'm not gonna get it, and I was kidding." Amelia tried to stop laughing.
"I know, I know." She picked up her glass and took another sip.
"So you just wanted a fun little fight, then, right? I know what you're up to." Amelia pulled the remote from her shirt and began to scroll through different genres.
"I remember overhearing some people at headquarters talking about it... ya know. I didn't know what it was, so I asked my dad. I was 12 and I'm sure you can imagine that it was an awkward conversation." Cooper looked up at the screen.
"That sounds like an awkward topic at any age, Amelia." She nodded in agreement.
"John Brand was mortified, let me tell you that. He found out who it was with security footage and I was told that they got a firm warning to never talk about it in the halls again." He watched as she selected the comedy section.
"Of course he was. As a dad, you want to shield your kids from that kind of stuff, especially girls." Amelia couldn't help but feel sorry for him, knowing he had to be thinking about protecting Tom and Murph from everything he thought he should. "Because I sure as hell remember what I was like as a teenager, and I wouldn't've wanted Tom to turn out like that, and I wouldn't've wanted Murph to date anyone like that, either."
"You teach kids what to do based on your past missteps and failures." Cooper looked at her and nodded.
"Yeah; exactly." He had almost immediately regretted that he had even said anything about kids, not even noticing that he had until he had said it, but her reply was enough to assure him that it was okay.
"Okay, so what movie are we going to watch?"
One month before Jill's death
"Jill, Tom's startin' to ask questions," Cooper said, looking at his wife as she sat in their bed.
"Coop, he knows something is wrong, we should just tell him." Jill held his hand, squeezing it weakly.
"And your dad, God bless the man," Cooper continued, looking down at his feet. "Lost his wife, his son and now..." Cooper began to cry and he felt Jill's hand gently land on his face.
"Shhh, Coop. Cooper, you're gonna make it. And you've got Murphy to keep you occupied." Cooper smiled gently. "She's the one who will have a lot of questions someday, and you'll need to answer them."
"Jill, don't talk like that," he begged, the look on her face begging to be taken from the pain.
"But it's the truth. You're going to have to tell her about me; you, dad and Tom will. You can do it. Be brave." Cooper nodded as he wiped the tears away. "And be happy."
"How am I going to be happy without you?" She began to help him wipe away his tears.
"One day you'll notice that you're happy again; you will. You'll know when the time's right. You'll feel it... you'll know. You'll know."
"I'm never moving on from you, Jill. Do you hear me? Never." Cooper could see that she was about to cry, too. "Never."
"I'm not askin' you to move on, Cooper. I'm asking you to be open to happiness again. If the kids see you happy, they'll be happy. I'm always gonna be right here," she said, pointing to his heart. "But that doesn't mean that there isn't room for someone else in there."
"Don't say things like that," Cooper begged, moving her hair from her face. "Please."
"I want you to be happy, Cooper. I want you to be happy because I love you. She's out there, and Tom and Murph and Dad will love her.; you will, too."
"No one is every gonna be able to replace their mom, his daughter... my wife." Cooper held her hand between both of his, pressed against his forehead.
"I'm not being replaced, I just want my family to be happy again." Cooper opened his eyes, remembering a healthier Jill. "Cooper, remember the crash?"
"Who could forget that?" he laughed through the tears. "Yes."
"And remember what I said? I said that it happened for a reason, as painful as it was." Cooper heard Murph's cries from the hallway. Donald had her and knew how to calm her down quickly.
"Don't try and tell me that this is happenin' for a reason, Jill." Cooper watched as she nodded.
"What can happen will happen," she paused, watching him, soaking in his features. She knew he was doing the same. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. Cooper, for some reason, this has been my destiny. I brought two beautiful children into this world, and that's enough for me. This is the end of my journey, but it's not the end of yours. There are so many pages left to fill." Jill smiled to herself. "These stories of me, of us together, those are the only memories Murphy is going to have, most of what Tom will have."
"And they've got to grow up without their mom," Cooper whispered, crying again.
"They're going to need their dad, Coop. You've got to be brave."