In which our protagonist and her beloved travel to Regency England in an attempt to recapture the electricity of their first meeting. However, when a mysterious stranger - or two - interferes, it seems that lightning can't be caught twice.

AMELIA AND THE ELECTRIC FROG

CHAPTER ONE

It's getting hot in here, so hot, so take off all your clothes
I am, getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off
It's getting hot in here, so hot, so take off all your clothes
I am, getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off

"What is that?" Cooper's shoulder started next to her on the sofa.

Amelia turned with a laugh. "I think it's funny. Look, they're doing the whole song, like a Regency music video."

Her husband shook his head. "What an odd movie you picked."

"I loved it." Amelia smiled, even as she reached for the remote to turn the volume down as the credits of Austenland continued. "It's about an attempt at time travel, you should appreciate that."

"A theme vacation is not time travel. I do not get transported to 17th-century France every time I visit Cinderella's castle at Disneyland. And no one in this movie really thought they were time traveling."

"Then we should travel to Regency England for them," Amelia said firmly.

"What?" Cooper raised his eyebrow. "Oh, was this your plan all along? I should have guessed it."

"Mmmm," Amelia pursed her lips, "I wouldn't call it a plan, per se, but it crossed my mind. Come on, I haven't been anywhere since I got pregnant with Errol, and I miss it. You said you'd teach me how to plot the course in the time machine. I know you think our last joint trip was too dangerous -"

"Because you insisted on breaking the law by going to a speakeasy."

"- but there's nothing dangerous about a weekend at an English estate and maybe a ball, if we're lucky," Amelia finished.

Cooper sighed. "Do you really want your first trip back to be so frivolous? What happened to all your plans to see the great events of history? From a safe distance, of course."

"Who said it's frivolous? There's a whole legion of Jane Austen fans that would disagree with you. Something that spawned that much love and loyalty and -" she gestured toward the television "- laughter is surely just as important as any war."

When Cooper didn't immediately answer, Amelia continued, "One could argue the early 19th century was the beginning of a golden age of science with new understandings of elements and medicine and mechanics. We could try to meet a famous scientist, too. Weren't they all the rage, scientists who came to house parties and made the legs on frogs move with rudimentary electricity?"

"Please, Amelia, that's just early battery technology. I built my first battery when I was still in diapers. I don't need to get all dressed up like Mr. Darcy to see a crude one work."

"Hoooo," Amelia breathed out and turned slightly to run her hand up along his strong bicep. "You dressed up like Mr. Darcy . . ."

"How about we compromise, and I dress up like Mr. Darcy here and then you take off all my clothes in the privacy of our current time . . ." Cooper's face leaned in tantalizingly close to hers.

"Well, it is getting awfully hot in here . . ."

No sooner had their lips touched then there was cry from Amelia's arms. They stopped and looked down at their previously sleeping son. In his sleep, with his chubby cheeks and random tufts of brown hair, he looked so innocent. But his cheeks were too flushed with fever today, and the large amount of drool on Amelia's sweater had her wondering if he was starting to teethe.

"Unfortunately, the only heat in here seems to be from Errol's fever," Amelia mumbled, even as she picked the unhappy and feverish baby up to rest on her shoulder, patting his bottom and shushing in his ear.

Cooper looked up when she walked into the bedroom. "That took a while."

Amelia shook her head and pulled down the blankets on her side of the bed before getting in. "Teething is making him very fussy. I don't know what to do. Let him cry himself to sleep or keep rocking him?"

Cooper reached for her hand and squeezed it. "I'm sure that whatever we're doing is the right thing."

"I know." Amelia nodded as she settled back again the headboard. "It's just there's a lot to do right now, and it's my first semester back at school. I could really use some nights of uninterrupted sleep. Why did he have to start teething right after he started sleeping for six hours straight? It was just a tease, and it's worse now that it's gone again."

"Here," Cooper reached for the beside lamp, turning it off, "I'll stop reading so you have the dark to go to sleep."

"Thank you." Amelia smiled, lowering herself down under the blankets next to Cooper. He pulled her close and she curled up with her head on his chest. But her mind was racing, thinking of the things she needed to do for her biology report, and she couldn't settle.

"Do you want to tell me a story?" Cooper murmured. Her restless shifting must have been more evident than she thought.

"I don't have a story," Amelia admitted.

"What are you reading, then?"

"Mostly about cells." She heard Cooper give a grunt of amusement. "Okay, I'm reading Longbourn. It's a retelling of Pride and Prejudice told from the servants' prospective. You're so lucky to have these new books inspired by Jane Austen now with such fresh ideas."

"No," Cooper said firmly.

"No what?" Amelia asked, lifting her head off his chest, furrowing her brow.

"When we go to Regency England we are most certainly not going as the servants. I don't care if it makes me a snob, but I'm not emptying a chamber pot."

Too surprised to point out he accepted the need to change Errol's diapers without complaint, Amelia pounced upon something else. "When? When! Does that mean we're going?"

"I meant if."

"But you said when."

Cooper sighed. "I'll admit I've given it some thought." He paused. "Of the heaving bosom variety."

Amelia rolled off his chest with a laugh. "Heaving bosoms? Mine, I hope."

"Of course." He rolled to look down at her. "It could be fun. It's probably why all those Darcy-fellows had those crotch flaps on their trousers."

"Crotch flaps?" Amelia laughed even harder.

Cooper pulled her in close and pressed himself against her. "Easy access," he hissed softly in her ear before wrapping him tongue around her earlobe.

"Oh, Cooper," Amelia moaned. "I'm afraid my bosom isn't exactly heaving in this nightgown."

"Mmmm," Cooper murmured into the kisses down her neck. "I love your bosoms in whatever they're wearing. Believe me, nothing in my crotch is flapping at this moment." He lowered his body very close to hers, so she could feel exactly how unflappable he was. "But I like your breasts best wearing nothing at all."

Just has he was reaching down to help pull her nightgown up, the monitor exploded with the sounds of crying.

"Nooo," Cooper rolled off of her, rubbing his palm down his face.

"I'm sorry," Amelia whispered. "Maybe I should have rocked him longer." She started to get up when Cooper's arm reached over to stop her.

"You stay and try to sleep. I'll go."

Amelia watched him slowly leave the bedroom, his silhouette dark but his shoulders clearly defeated. She frowned. It had been too long; Errol's teething had disrupted several facets of their lives, and she was worried this one was starting to become a problem.

She heard Cooper say over the monitor, between his hushing noises, even as the crying quieted some, "I love you, son, but you're killing me."

No, it was definitely a problem. And even the soft sounds of Cooper singing his favorite lullaby wafting over the baby monitor couldn't lull her to sleep.

"Fast clock, slow clock,
Time runs by so fast.
Big star, bright star,
The universe is so vast."

Amelia completed the last of her organic chemistry exercises and looked over at Cooper, absorbed in something on his computer. She smiled at him without his knowledge. It was a nice evening despite the work she had to do, filled with the full but unobtrusive silence she had always enjoyed with Cooper. Then, her eyes shifted to her son, lolling on his blanket, his favorite toy in one hand and using the other to keep his teething ring in his mouth. The new teething rings she's bought out of desperation - she'd ordered every one of the top ten rated teething rings and toys on Amazon - could be refrigerated, and their cold surfaces had proved to be the solution they needed.

Flicking her eyes back to her handsome husband, she sighed as she rested her chin on her palm at the island.

"That was a deep sigh," Cooper said, his eyes not leaving his computer screen. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just the opposite. I was thinking about how I'm enjoying organic chemistry more than I thought I would and how pleased I am that Errol is calm and I was daydreaming about you."

"Daydreaming about me?" Cooper stopped typing and turned his chair.

Smiling, Amelia got off her stool to move close to him, running her fingertips through his dark hair. "How handsome you are."

"I am handsome, aren't I? And parts of me are a joy to behold," Cooper responded, reaching for Amelia, wrapping his arms about her waist and pulling her closer.

"Still interested in dressing up like Mr. Darcy?" Amelia cooed.

"Mmmmm, maybe. Tell me what you had in mind." His blue eyes looked up at her.

"Just you all dressed up like Mr. Darcy." Amelia took a deep breath. "And then I can set my cap at you before all those other ladies and we can flirt and dance and it will all be harmless fun."

"I'm confused." Cooper's eyebrows dipped. "Why would you have to set your cap at me if you're my wife?"

Amelia shrugged. "No one will know that, right? We can pretend not to be married."

Cooper pulled back, the wheels of his chair rolling in the process. "Why do I get the feeling we're not talking about the same thing? Since there would be no one else in our bedroom to either know or not know if you're my wife, I can only extrapolate that you're talking about time travel again."

"You love to time travel," Amelia protested.

"I do. And I love to time travel with you. I have no objections to planning a trip. But I fail to see the appeal of this particular plan. Especially now that you say you want to pretend not to be married. Why?"

"It would be part of the fun, pretending we were just starting to fall in love, that we hadn't a care in the world," Amelia said softly.

"Oh." Cooper looked over at their son, still content on his blanket with his toy and his teething ring. "I don't suppose just a quiet weekend somewhere would be as exciting, would it?"

"It can still be a quiet weekend. We'll stay somewhere, talk over tea without distractions, take long walks in the famous English countryside. You know, woo each other." She tried to keep the hope out of her voice, she tried to sound neutral. She had been building this fantasy in her mind for a couple of weeks now, even as she chided herself for doing that exact thing.

"We already wooed each other once," Cooper said sharply, turning back to his computer, although Amelia noticed he didn't put his hands back on the keyboard.

"And I loved it!" Amelia put her hands out, on his shoulder. "Cooper, I love you. I'm not trying to change anything or replace anything. I don't want that! I just want to recapture it. I know I've been busy with school and I know Errol's teething has disrupted our . . . schedule, and I just thought . . . it might be fun. Isn't that one of the beauties of time travel? We can live it all over again."

He turned to look at her. "But we wouldn't be living it all over again. We'd be doing something completely different, in Regency England, not Kansas."

"Only because we can't cross our own timelines. You told me that."

Cooper grunted and nodded in agreement. "If - and it's a very big if - I agree to this, why we would be traveling together if we're not married? The logistics just don't work, not the least because we both have American accents."

"We could be cousins or something."

"Cousins!" Cooper's head reared back and his lip curled. "Ugh. No, absolutely not."

"It was common at the time, Cooper. I even knew a couple of cousins that got married," Amelia explained.

"Thank goodness that's gone out of fashion with superior gene sequencing and genetic research."

"What about second cousins or something like that? Would that be distant enough for you?"

He tilted his head. "Maybe. But, still, why would we be traveling together?"

"Well," Amelia pursed her lips, "maybe all my family died and you're my only living relative. Technically, we'd have to be related to be traveling together unmarried without a chaperone, anyway. And you're taking me to England to escape the tragedy. Pride and Prejudice was published not long before the War of 1812, for example."

Another grunt from Cooper. "I should have known better than challenge your imagination." But then he gave her a little smile.

"We don't have to decide today. Just think about it." She stepped close and ran her hand down his strong shoulder. "Think about this: I could be Amelia Farrow again, innocent and sheltered, and you could be Cooper Shelton again -"

"I still am Cooper Shelton," he said, but he reached for her, putting his hand on her hip.

"- worldly but emotionally distant and mysterious. Just like Mr. Darcy. Just like when we first met."

"That's not the way I remember it. You weren't so innocent, little Miss Farrow, with your bathtub." He smiled and touched the buttons on her sweater with his other hand. "And I wasn't emotionally distant; if I were, you wouldn't be here having this conversation with me right now."

"No, you're right. You weren't emotionally distant. But you tried to be. I'm sorry to inform you that is something you failed miserably at."

"It never felt like failure." He stood and reached for her, his head tilting down. "Someone is quiet, the night is young," he whispered, closing his eyes and he leaned in for the kiss that Amelia was awaiting -

An angry cry broke them apart, and Amelia sighed. She looked over at her son as he stretched and tried to reach the teething ring that he'd apparently thrown just outside of his grasp. "It's okay, Errol, I'll get it," she said, walking over and gathering her son in her arms while also picking up the ring. "No wonder you threw it away, it's gotten warm. Let me get you another one from the freezer."

Balancing her quieting son on her hip, Amelia saw Cooper shake his head before he sat back down at his computer, the magic moment lost.

The oven timer went off, and Amelia stood, stretching and rubbing her forehead. This biology test was going to be brutal. It's not that she didn't feel confident in how well she understood the material, it was just the sheer quantity of it. Regardless, there was still dinner to be eaten. Nothing fancy, as she didn't have the time, but at least the casserole would be filling.

"What's for dinner?" she heard Cooper sing-song to their son, who he holding in his spot. "It smells delicious!"

"You know it's just ham and shredded potatoes casserole," Amelia said, turning off the timer and opening the oven door. She hated using prepackaged and precooked potatoes like this, but she didn't have time to peel and boil and shred herself.

"But it still smells delicious," Cooper protested as Amelia heard his voice approaching. "You didn't have to cook. We could have just ordered pizza."

"No, we couldn't," Amelia said, setting the hot casserole on the top of the stove to shut the oven door. "You know how unhealthy all that food is." Not that this is much better, she thought bitterly. Why was every modern convenience so unhealthy?

"Hey! I'm just trying to lighten your load."

Amelia turned around and looked at him standing by the island, holding Errol. Had she snapped? Yes, she supposed she had. "I'm sorry. I've just got a lot on my plate." She picked back up the casserole, holding its tiny handles with the hand towel, and turned toward the island, fighting away a frown when she when saw that she'd forgotten to set the table. Then Cooper stepped close with a glass, pressing it against the lever of the ice machine with one hand while he held Errol with the other.

Turning sideways, Amelia tried to squeeze in between Cooper's back and the sink. Just then Cooper shifted Errol and his hip, and Amelia pulled back to keep the baby's exposed calf from touching the hot dish. The action was too quick or too jarring and her hand lost its grip on the hot handle, the towel sliding out of place and she yelled just as the casserole dish went flying out of her hands. Quickly, she lurched forward to grab it without thinking, but then she had to grab the back of Cooper's shirt, pulling on it, fighting to keep herself upright so she didn't fall face-first into the hot casserole dish as it shattered on the floor, sending shards of white stoneware and blobs of cheesy potatoes everywhere.

There was an additional shatter of glass and ice as Cooper tumbled and Errol screamed and then, somehow, Cooper was pinning her to the counter, holding her upright. "Are you okay?" He asked, pushing way, pulling Errol in closer to him. "It's okay, little guy. It's okay."

"Is he hurt?" Amelia almost shrieked.

"I don't know!" Cooper bounced their howling son in his arms.

"Well, don't just stand there, check! He could be cut or burned or -" A sob caught in Amelia's throat, as she reached for her son's legs, inspecting for any injury. "You knew I had a hot dish!"

"You didn't tell me you were coming behind me!"

"I was trying to get it to the table!"

"I was trying to help you set the table!"

"But you still had Errol!"

"I was entertaining him so you could study!"

Errol kept screaming over both of them, his cries only getting louder in response to theirs, even as Amelia frantically kept searching his little body for burns or cuts. "Nothing," she finally announced.

"Shhh, see, it's okay, it was just loud and frightening," Cooper shushed into his son's head, pulling him in closer.

Looking at them, Amelia sighed and then looked around at the mess that was their kitchen. Their too-small kitchen. They had all these modern convinces and not enough room to use them. She groaned at the sight of the casserole everywhere and all the shards to be cleaned up, and it only deepened when she saw some of the casserole had landed on the island, on her still open textbook. She grabbed the washcloth and dampened it in the sink and knelt down to start washing, when she noticed Cooper's footsteps crunching away from her. "Where are you going?"

"To rock our son so he calms down and put him to bed."

He was gone before Amelia could reply, and she knelt there in her ruined kitchen, her stomach rumbling at the delicious smell, exhausted from studying and teething, imagining her husband sitting down and enjoying the quiet, rocking Errol while her knees ached and she washed and swept and scrubbed like Cinderella and - oh! She pulled her hand back and looked down at the little shard of glass embedded in the meaty part of her palm and she lowered her head and she sobbed. She sobbed right there, surrounded by a ruined meal and a broken casserole dish and melting pieces of ice and a stained biochemistry textbook and no one cared. No one at all. Her husband only wanted to be alone with his little Time Lord and who could blame him, she thought, as she rubbed her hair back and discovered too late she'd only managed to mix melted cheese and blood into it and she sobbed some more.

Then she was being gathered, strong arms about her, pulling her in tight. "Amelia, it's okay. It's only a casserole."

"It's not though. It's the glass and the dish and the ice and my textbook and I cut my hand and there's cheese in my hair and I have to study and there's not enough clean dish towels to even clean this up with because I didn't do laundry this afternoon and -"

"You cut your hand?" Cooper pulled away slightly, looked at her with worried eyes. "Come on, let's go to the bathroom."

"What about the mess?"

"I'll clean it."

She let herself be led to the bathroom where she sat on the edge of the bathtub as Cooper gently and silently cleaned her hand and bandaged it. "Do you want a bath to wash your hair?" he asked. "I used a waterproof Band-Aid."

"I'm sorry about dinner," she answered instead.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you. You're right, I should have put Errol down and not stood your way." Cooper sighed. "But, Amelia, you do too much. You don't have to make dinner every night and do all the laundry and study and raise our son. You're a lot of wonderful things, but you're not Wonder Woman."

"I could be!" she protested with sniff. "Sometime, somewhere."

Cooper sighed again, and she realized he was giving in to her pouting. "Very well. Yes, you could be. But not in this timeline. In this timeline, you're overworking yourself."

"But I'm used to being busy," Amelia protested softly. Cooper was always telling her she was doing too much. "If we were in Kansas, I wouldn't have a washing machine and -"

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Amelia. And, even if we were, there wouldn't be any biochemistry for you to study there." Cooper bent down in front of her. "Listen, take a bath and relax while I go order pizza and clean the kitchen. No more work for you tonight -" he put his finger up when she opened her mouth "- or studying. You're already know it all, anyway, you're just working yourself up for nothing." As he stood, he kissed the non-potato side of her forehead and said, "I love you and I love your drive, but not everything has to be done at the same time."

"Come in," Amelia called at the soft knock at the door, even as she took that as her cue to get out of the bath.

"The pizza just arrived," Cooper said as he walked in. "Are you feeling better?"

Amelia nodded as she stood in the tub and reached for her towel. "I know you're right. I just need to calm down and relax sometimes. But I just think of all those woman, who fought and were imprisoned and force-feed so I could do all of this."

"Here." Cooper took the towel from her and rubbed it along her neck and shoulders. "Those women fought for your right to choose what you wanted to do, not for you to feel obligated to do everything possible at the same time to the detriment of your health and happiness."

She looked sharply at him. "Do you think I've been unhappy? Do I act like it? Am I - am I grouchy?"

"Maybe. A little," Cooper muttered, as he concentrated in an unnecessary way on drying her outstretched arm. He took a deep breath. "I've been thinking about that long weekend in the English countryside. We've both been too busy and stressed with work and school and even Errol's teething, and we could use the time away, without all these modern demands. I'm been grouchy, too, I think." She looked at him, hopeful he was saying what she thought he was saying, and he finally looked at her with a grin. "Put on your pantaloons, little lady! We're going to Regency England!"

"Oh, Cooper!" Amelia flung her arms around his neck the best she could while still standing in the bathtub. "Thank you! Except -" she pulled back with smirk "- I won't be wearing pantaloons. Regency-era woman didn't tend to wear anything under their petticoats."

"Are you saying you're not going to be wearing any underpants?" Cooper raised his eyebrows.

Amelia winked in what she hoped was seductive manner.

To be continued . . .

Thank you for joining me for another Coopmelia adventure. As with all my Coopmelia stories, this is not meant to be a realistic historical treatise but rather a fun little romp through the tropes of an era. In this case, I've also referenced various Jane Austen-related films (see if you can spot them!). But all historical errors are mine alone, and some were even left in purposely.

Once again, this work wouldn't be possible without the tireless efforts of my dear friend and beta, Melissa (here as AnotherBritFan), who worked on this even while busy and exhausted from moving her business into a new space.

One last remainder that I am on Instagram as aprilinparisfanfic, where I'll be sharing story teasers and visuals related to this work in addition to my usual Shamy bookish geekery.

As always, thank you in advance for your reviews.

('So Hot In Herre' song, 2002, sung by Nelly; 'Austenland' movie, 2013, Sony Pictures Classic, based on the novel by the same name by Shannon Hale, 2007; 'Longbourn' novel, 2013, by Jo Baker)