On a rather miserable day, Sheldon and Amy sit at the kitchen island, both holding a mug of warm cocoa to their mouths. After their trip to the zoo had been cancelled due to the rain, they had decided to stay in Sheldon's apartment and as usual started to distract one another by talking about work. However, they had somehow got onto the subject of cats.
"… so, that's why I need to find eight pints of milk for the cat we're experimenting on."
"Oh Amy, one whole gallon? Surely the investigation for whether cats think about their dairy intake or not can be passed over to someone with less calibre."
Amy felt a smile creep up on her face. Without knowing it, Sheldon had complimented her. Well; at least she didn't think he was aware of his actions.
"Apparently not. They burdened me with the job because no-one else was prepared to go to the store for 28 pounds of cat food and risk looking like a crazy cat lady." a frown now replacing the happiness that had once inhabited her pretty rounded head.
"Well, two stone of kitty kibble is quite a lot. Why did they elect you for such a task?"
She started to become tearful, and focused on the cocoa instead of her boyfriend's fretful eyes. "They… they said I looked naturally like I would own an obscene amount of felines. If I go, the store won't become suspicious."
Sheldon looked up sharply and creased his eyebrows. For once he was almost speechless – he knew the neuroscientists could be cruel down at UCLA but to say that to his Amy was rather uncalled for. "I'm sorry."
"What have you got to be sorry for? It's not your fault I'm 154 pounds of weird."
"Amy, don't be so hard on yourself. The imperial units can be a very deceiving thing. Eleven stone is perfectly fine for a woman."
She looked directly at Sheldon, and placed her mug back on the table. "You don't think I'm cumbersome?"
Sheldon looked into her calming blue eyes. He loathed the subject of weight, but now the matter had been arisen he intended to finish it swiftly. "No. In fact I think you are very aesthetically pleasing. You are no longer not considered to be not my girlfriend, aren't you?"
"Without the quadruple negative, yes. I am indeed your girlfriend."
"Then in that case I don't see anything more to discuss. I don't care how you are viewed by others; isn't it something to know that your companion likes you just the way you are?"
Amy was confused as to where this was going. Sheldon was acting stranger than her colleagues saw her. "And do you? Like me, I mean."
Sheldon took a deep breath. "Yes. Amy Farrah Fowler, I don't think you realise how much your presence means to me. Because of you, the conversation in this apartment has been increased to my standard of intelligence and I now have someone other than my mother who can take care of my boo-boos. This therefore makes you high up in the friend list."
"Friend list? Well, where am I?"
He didn't want to say, but thought it was best if he did. "… Despite having known Leonard for much longer, you are indeed number one." He said as he got up and sat in his traditional spot on the couch, hoping that she would just let the matter go. Amy followed him and didn't sit.
"… Really? I'm number one?"
Sheldon was getting impatient with the conversation, but let it slide for what he knew to be a very emotional Amy Farrah Fowler. "I just said that. Now, don't you have cats to buy outlandish amounts of milk for?"
She wasn't going anywhere. "Sheldon, that's so sweet."
"Oh please, don't compare me to a common reaction of a taste bud. You know that's the kind of colloquialism I have to put up with through Penny."
Amy rolled her eyes. "Sheldon…"
"Yes, I know. I apologise. You're still upset over the opinions of your contemporaries."
She sat beside him and angled herself to face her boyfriend. She was dangerously close to him yet he did not move an inch, nor 2.5 centimetres as he would so accurately put it.
"Can I ask you something?"
Sheldon angled himself in the same way and wore a sympathetic smile. "As long as it's not 'how are babies born' then sure, fire away." He said adding his dimples to the ends of the smile.
"Can we cuddle? You know, like we did the last time I was sad."
He sighed. "Oh, drat. I should have added that to the list of prohibited questions."
Amy's small smile faded quickly. "We've done it before, so why not again?"
Sheldon considered her argument for a moment, and replied softly. "You know that's not how we do things."
This time, there was a minor angry tone in Amy's voice. "Well, maybe it's time for a change!"
Without thinking, Sheldon took Amy's hand in his and whispered. "I'm never any further away from you than 8 kilometres at any one time – I even remind myself that it translates to 5 miles to make the distance seem shorter. We are simply around each other all of the time! But we would be breaking the Relationship Agreement if we cuddled."
"Then what are you doing now?" Amy asked, looking down at their hands. Sheldon followed her gaze and let go of her hand with haste.
"Oh darn. Not again. Think Sheldon, think."
Amy sat up. "Screw the Relationship Agreement!" she exclaimed, and immediately she seized Sheldon's hands again. Pulling him up to her, she kept tight hold of his hands and brought him into a kiss. Unlike the last one they shared, this was slower but Sheldon still had to be guided in moving his lips in time with hers. Time seemed to stop in that moment, even though both of the scientists knew that it was impossible. When Amy broke the kiss (Sheldon was still hopeless in knowing when an appropriate time to stop was) she caught his stare for a second and then rushed to the door. With a click of the lock, Sheldon acknowledged she had gone.
"Intriguing." He said aloud to himself, and with that he walked back up to the kitchen island to take care of the empty cocoa mugs – a distant reminder of the most eccentric exchange about cats Sheldon had ever had.