Chapter Five

It looked like a castle from a fairytale, perched on the hill, the walls white and gleaming in the evening sun, capped by three brown domes.

"Oh, it's beautiful," Amelia said, getting out of Penelope's car. "But Cooper told me he didn't go to church."

"It's not a church," Penelope said. "It's the Griffith Observatory. It's sort of museum, but there are telescopes and other stuff, all about the stars. Cooper rented a room. But I can't tell you anything else, it's a surprise." She hooked her arm through Amelia's and guided her toward the building.

Amelia had never been in such a grand space before. In the center of the dome was a large swinging weight. "Is that a pendulum? I've only heard of them, but I've never seen one."

"Beats me," Penelope said. "Come one, we'll be late. You know Cooper hates that that."

Knowing she was right, Amelia allowed herself to be lead away from Galileo's discovery and into the strangest room she had seen yet. All of the empty chairs were arranged in a circle, and the only source of light was a soft white glow from the ceiling. Cooper stood in the middle, with Leo.

Amelia looked at him and smiled, not even noticing that Penelope had let go of her and she was walking to him on her own accord. He had changed, he was no longer wearing his usual shirts, the clothes he had on when he left the apartment in the morning; instead, he had put on a gray suit.

"Hello," Amelia said, feeling shy for no explainable reason, "you look handsome."

He smiled back, a smile so beautiful Amelia thought she would cry. "You are beautiful. Here, these are for you." He held out a small cluster of wildflowers tied with a wide ribbon. "You seem like a wildflower kind of girl."

Amelia nodded, too touched to speak. They matched her dress perfectly.

"Technically, you can't rent the planetarium for personal events. We used our Caltech credentials to get a half-hour of time. We may have misled them on some details," Cooper explained.

"What's a planetarium?" Amelia asked, feeling more sure of herself now. She was also thrilled to marrying this handsome man, not only a brilliant scientist, but also a rogue and an outlaw.

"This," and then Cooper waved his arms. Amelia noticed three people standing in the dim light along the edge of the room, two men, both with dark hair and one with dark skin, and a petite woman with blond hair. These must be the other friends of Cooper's that he had told her about. Before she could ask about their presence, the ceiling darkened and changed. It was full of stars, what seemed to be thousands of them.

"Oh!" she cried out.

"Do you know what this is?" Cooper asked.

Amelia shook her head, tilting it back to see the brightest, most beautiful stars.

"It's the early morning sky over Independence, Kansas on November 3, 1886. You said we should be married somewhere sacred."

It was no use trying to prevent the tears from falling now. They coursed down her cheeks as she looked back at Cooper. "The morning we met." Both two weeks ago and a lifetime ago.

Cooper nodded and put his hand out for her. She took it, feeling the pulse of electricity, the same one that had not dimmed from the way it felt that day on the prairie. They turned together to face Leo.

"Cooper and Amelia. I was so honored when Cooper asked me to join you in the bond of matrimony. I tried to think of several suitable openings for such an important occasion, but Cooper disapproved of all of them -"

"Because they were lame," Cooper interrupted.

" -so at last I decided to let Cooper do the talking, because hearing himself talk is what he does best," Leo continued.

Amelia turned to look at Cooper, her heart thundering. What did he want to say? This wasn't at all like any marriage ceremony she'd ever witnessed.

"Amelia," Cooper said with a deep breath. "I have never believed in destiny, mostly because of the lack of scientific proof. But from the day I crash-landed on your farm, I felt like I was fated for you. I had always felt I needed something greater than I had, and suddenly there was this curious young woman. I realized it was just the beginning of an inevitable and irresistible course of events. You are my destiny, you are the something greater. Now, whenever I may be in time, I want it to be with you."

Tears were falling rapidly from Amelia's eyes, but she didn't dare let go of Cooper's hand to wipe them away. She let them roll off of her face onto her new dress.

Leo spoke, "Amelia, I know we didn't give you a warning to prepare anything, so I have the traditional wedding vows here if you would like to repeat them."

She shook her head. "No, I will speak." Amelia took a deep breath to calm her herself. "'Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"

Cooper reached up and wiped a tear away from her face. "Not Romeo and Juliet?"

"No. Not anymore."

Leo cleared his throat, and they snapped back to the present. "There are rings?"

"Yes," Cooper said, letting go of her hand to reach into his breast pocket. He reached for Amelia's hand and slipped the thin, silver band onto her finger. Then he handed her a larger matching ring.

Amelia raised her eyebrows in surprise but took it. Why was he giving her this ring? When he flattened his left hand and held it out to her, she understood. This ring was meant for him. How strange. She had never seen a man wearing a wedding ring before. But she quite liked the idea, the outward symbol to the world that he was hers, just as she was his. She took the ring, and slowly slid it down one of his beautiful, long fingers.

"You may kiss your bride," Leo said with smile.

Cooper leaned in and gave her a gentle, warm kiss. They smiled at each other as they parted.

"By the power invested in me by the Internet and the state of California, I pronounce you husband and wife."

Penelope cheered and applauded, as did the strangers she had not yet met, and Cooper leaned into give her another kiss, longer this time, before resting his forehead on hers. "I love you so much, Amelia."

"I love you, too."

"And you go there once a week?" Amelia asked as Cooper unlocked the door.

"Every Tuesday," he answered, pushing the door open, and then turning to her. "Are you sure The Cheesecake Factory was good enough? It wasn't too scary, with all my friends there?"

"Oh, I loved it! Everyone was so nice. And the cheesecake, I'd never heard - Whmmmph." Amelia was suddenly hoisted up by Cooper. "What are you doing?"

"Carrying you across the threshold." He walked into the apartment with her. "It's either to prevent you from appearing too eager to lose your virginity or for good luck or to prevent a dead spirit from entering your body through the soles of your feet. It's a medieval custom, I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Yes. But I thought you didn't believe in superstitions," Amelia said as he put her down.

Cooper shrugged. "It's better to be safe than sorry."

Amelia smiled as Cooper turned to shut the door. He came back to her and put his hands on her waist. "Welcome home." Her smile broadened. "I have a gift for you."

"A gift?"

"Yes." Cooper let her go and went to his desk, opening the top drawer and removing an envelope. He held it out.

Amelia raised her eyebrows and took it. There was a logo in the corner. "What's this?"

"Open it," Cooper replied, grinning. Amelia opened it and read the words on the stiff paper inside.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked.

"If you think it means weekly riding lessons, you're right. I know it's the not the same as having your own horse, but -"

Not letting him finish, Amelia rushed at him, wrapping her arms around him. "Oh, I love it!"

She reached up for his lapels and pulled him down to her lips, kissing him eagerly. And then it turned deeper, hungrier, Cooper's hands snaking up her back, beneath her cardigan. She hated to break away, she hated that she needed to breathe.

Cooped licked his lips. "Uh, well . . . you'll probably want to change your clothes. Or something."

"Okay," Amelia said. She took off her cardigan and turned around. "Will you unzip it? I'm not sure how to work a zipper on my back yet."

Cooper chuckled. "It's easy. You just reach around -" she felt his hand at her neck "- and pull down." A rush of cooler air hit Amelia's back. And then she felt his fingertip, like a hot point of flesh, start to run slowly down from her neck, tracing her spine. Her whole body shivered and, when she involuntarily closed her eyes, her vision seemed to scintillate on the edges. Stopping and resting his entire palm on the small of her back, Cooper leaned over her and whispered in her ear. "Tonight?"

She nodded, her heart thrashing violently.

"Go ahead, get ready. I'll come in in a few minutes."

Amelia almost ran away from him, not looking back. She slammed the bedroom door shut behind her. She felt so overwhelmed. The things she had seen in that movie, the things her mother had told her, the feel of Cooper's fingertip creeping down her back. Shivering once more, she stepped out of the dress. She hung it up carefully, and when she was doing so, the light caught her new silver wedding ring. She smiled softly.

Trusting something Penelope did say, she removed all of her undergarments and slid the new nightgown over her shoulders. It floated away from her skin. She looked down and was shocked at how much was not hidden by this sheer fabric, how the tops of her breasts peeked out above the pink flowers. It didn't seem to make any sense, not covering something but just slightly obscuring it. But Penelope said that's what men liked. Amelia blushed thinking of her bath on the prairie, with Cooper in the loft above. She wondered again if he had spied on her between the floorboards. Maybe all of this show was unnecessary.

She crawled into bed. She almost wished he was there already, like he had been the night before he left. She could have rolled away from him again, and let him decide what to do next. Somehow it seemed easier to lie next to him in her undergarments when she didn't really understand everything that could happen. Maybe she shouldn't have talked to Penelope. Not that she had said much, saying that she had decided it might be better if Amelia just discovered some of it on her own, with Cooper. She had answered a few direct questions, including confirming the things Cooper told her about birth control. Bur, in the end, she had just told Amelia that it would be her entire body, not just the parts her mother had told her, to let Cooper touch her everywhere, with his hands and his mouth. "You won't regret it," she had said with a wink.

There was a knock at the door. "Amelia?"

"Come in," she called, pulling the blankets up higher.

Cooper entered the room and smiled at her. He was carrying his suit jacket and tie, and he hung those up. He untucked his shirt and started to unbutton it. It was only then that Amelia realized he was going undress in front of her. She turned her head away.

"You can watch," he said softly. She turned back. The shirt was gone, put in the hamper. Then his white undershirt, revealing his broad shoulders and muscular arms. He kicked off his shoes and steadied himself on the edge of the closet door to remove his socks. There was the jangling of his belt and then he pulled it loose. The whoosh of his pants, and when he bent down to pick them up, Amelia could make out the form of his posterior through his Underoos. 'Maybe this show really is a good thing,' she thought. Quicker than she expected, he had hooked his thumbs on the waistband, and they were gone, too. Cooper turned toward her, and she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut.

"You've seen it before," he said, lifting the blankets and sliding in next to her.

Amelia opened her eyes, looking at the ceiling. "But it didn't look like that."

He chuckled softly. "Miraculously." Then there was a pause before his hand brushed her face, gently turning it toward him. His face had changed, a little wrinkle between his brows. "I thought you knew. I didn't think it would be a surprise to you. When you were in the bath, you certainly seemed to understand. And when you got in bed with me, I thought . . ."

Feeling her face burn, Amelia tried to smile, trying to both reassure Cooper and herself. "I do know. I know what's going to happen. I just - I think I was pretending to be brave when I got in bed. I thought that you wanted that. That if you had that you wouldn't get in your time machine."

"Oh, Amelia." His lips brushed against hers, the barest hint of a kiss. "Do you understand now? That's exactly why I couldn't?"

"Yes," Amelia whispered.

"But you're right," Cooper answered, gently kissing her cheek, then her temple. "I did want you. Almost as much as I want you right now." His kissed her earlobe, and then, without warning, Amelia felt a surge course through her as Cooper's mouth surrounded it, his tongue swirling.

"Hoooooot." Her back arched and she could feel Cooper's lips turn up in a smile, the little sound he gave out, even though he didn't stop what he was doing. His hand, which had been holding her cheek, started to meander slowly down her neck, slipping under the very edge of blankets, resting on the bare skin of her chest, just above the scandalously low neckline of the flimsy nightgown.

He stopped. "You're trembling."

Amelia didn't know if she was trembling from fear or desire or a mixture of both. The feel of his breath in her ear, his hot palm on her décolletage, goose bumps rising on her flesh, the pulsing deep within her. It felt so overwhelming, and all of these sensations were only heightened by his declaration of his craving for her. She was craving him, too, in every sense of the word. She had been craving him for as long as she could remember, long before she knew him.

She turned her head to gaze upon his beautiful porcelain skin. "I want you, too. Then. And now. I'm just - it's overwhelming."

"Amelia," he whispered softly, his lips barely grazing hers once more, "please don't be frightened. I love you, and I only want to make you feel good. Let yourself be overwhelmed. I want you to think of the place you love the most on Earth, a place where time feels meaningless. I want to you shut your eyes and think of that place. And then I want to take you there. Just me, just us, no time machine. I want to be there with you. Will you let me take you there?"

Her heart ached at the palpable love in his voice. She looked into his beautiful blue eyes and knew, as she had known for so long, that she was never safer than with him. Amelia nodded and closed her eyes. She felt his soft, nimble hand slip slowly beneath the neckline of her nightgown. She exhaled softly and thought of the place she loved the most.

Then the cool earth was beneath her back. Everything smelled new and fresh. The sun was on her face, and she smiled up at the sun on Cooper's. A gentle spring breeze tickled their bodies, and there were goosebumps on her skin. The spring wildflowers swayed and danced in time with her breath, and the birds sang a beautiful song along with her. There were the gentle hills and plains and furrows, and they undulated and dipped and rolled. There were waves of green, and she was borne aloft upon them. There was Cooper and there was her and there was the prairie, and time was as boundless and endless as the sea of grasses around them.

THE END

The adventure continues in Amelia and the Bareback Rider . . .

Thank you in advance for your reviews. Coopmelia forever!