Sheldon didn't want to go home for Thanksgiving. Well, any trip home to Texas felt unnecessary and exhausting. However, Thanksgiving this year seemed as though it might actually be literal torture. Now that both of Sheldon's siblings were married, his mother's focus was turned on him. If he didn't show up with a girl, he was going to be set up with any number of them from his mother's church, even if that didn't make any sense with Sheldon living two thousand miles away.
"Will you go home with me?" Sheldon asked his roommate and best friend, Leonard Hofstadter. Sheldon could pretend that Leonard was his boyfriend. His mother wouldn't ask too many questions if she thought he dated men. Sheldon didn't date men. He didn't date women. He didn't date anyone.
"You know I'm going to Nebraska with Penny," Leonard reminded him.
"You were my boyfriend first," Sheldon complained, but just shrugged. He didn't really have any hope that Leonard would join him. He only really asked out of desperation.
The next day, Sheldon was grabbing lunch alone in the cafeteria. He was still sulking about having to go home. Perhaps he could catch some terrible disease and have to stay here in California. A hospital would be the only reason he could avoid going home. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, there were no free tables. Sheldon stomped to sit across from the weird new neurobiologist.
"Hello," she said to him brightly.
"Hello," Sheldon returned, but his tone made it clear that he had no interest in chatting.
"Excuse me, but could—?" she started.
"What? What do you need from me?" Sheldon snapped.
"The pepper," she said as she pointed to the shaker in front of Sheldon.
Sheldon never felt like an ass even when he was being one, but it seemed that there was a first time for everything. This woman didn't do anything to him, and he was being a jerk to her. He slid the pepper over to her.
"Sorry. I'm just having a rough day because I am stressed out about Thanksgiving. I should not have been so rude to you," Sheldon told her.
"Are you homeless for Thanksgiving too?" she asked.
"Homeless?" Sheldon asked.
"Well, homeless is an exaggeration, but yeah. A pipe in the apartment above mine burst a couple days ago. I was staying in the motel that my insurance covered until I found cockroaches. Since it's Thanksgiving, I've been struggling to find other accommodations, and I slept in my car last night."
"Oh. No. Things are much worse for me than that. I have to go home for Thanksgiving," Sheldon explained.
"You have to go home?" She didn't understand how that was worse, but perhaps the man had some kind of complicated family history.
"You don't understand. I have to go home to Texas," Sheldon clarified.
"And you don't get along with your parents?"
"Oh, no. I love my mother, but she wants me to be happy. It's the worst."
"I see. Well, good luck with that. I have to go wait on hold for another hour to be told that every hotel in town doesn't have a room that isn't $700 a night."
That was when Sheldon got an idea. No one he knew would go home with him for the holidays, but maybe this woman would. She didn't seem to have any better prospects. Sheldon didn't need to actually be in a relationship with someone to make his mother think he was.
"Would you like to go to Texas with me? I need someone to pretend to be in a relationship with me to make my mother stop worrying about me, and you need a place to stay over the holiday."
"Do you know my name?"
"Not yet, but that seems easy enough to remedy."
Sheldon looked at the woman while he waited for her to introduce herself. She just looked at him, shook her head, and walked away. Sheldon thought it was rude that she didn't say her name, but she must still be thinking about his offer. Though, she really needed to get back to him about it soon. Sheldon knew what department she worked in, so it wouldn't be hard to check up and find her later. He went back to eating his lunch.
Later that day, Sheldon found out that the woman with whom he spoke was Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. He also found out the location of her office, and decided to stop by to see if she had made a decision about joining him in Texas. It was an unpleasant surprise to find her crying in her office.
"Oh, God. What do you want?" Amy asked in between sobs.
"I've come to see if you made up your mind about coming with me to Texas. Why are you crying?"
"Because I still haven't found a place to stay. Wait. Were you serious about me going to Texas with you? We don't even know each other," Amy explained.
"I was very serious about it, Dr. Fowler. I have found you a ticket on a plane that leaves a couple hours after mine tomorrow because it seems that my plane is full. It is $350, but I am willing to pay a full half. All other expenses are covered by myself or my family. I believe that will be more affordable than other accommodations."
Amy would never consider something like this if she wasn't backed into a corner, but she had spent most of the last two days trying to find somewhere to stay. Maybe this was her best option. It was that or sleeping in her lab or car.
"Please sit, Mr..," Amy started. Oh God, she was planning on going to Texas with a man whose name she didn't even know.
"Doctor," Sheldon automatically corrected. "I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, theoretical physics. I have seen you around for the last few months, but we haven't ever spoken before today."
"Correct," Amy said. She supposed that she should ask him some questions. "Are you a murderer?"
"No," he said. He pulled a few pages of paper from his bag and handed them over. "As you can see my criminal record only consists of one count of jaywalking, which I demanded to be arrested for, one ticket for running a red light during a medical emergency, and one contempt of court charge related to the red light because the judge was a meany."
Amy looked over the background check, and it did seem that Dr. Cooper had a pretty clean record. He had also included his education information as well as a work history.
"You graduated high school at eleven?" Amy asked as she stared at the paperwork. That couldn't possibly be right.
"Yes. Now, I will let you look all of that over, and I will be back at five so that you may drive me home."
"Drive you home?"
"Yes. Since I don't drive, you may drive me home this evening, where you will sleep on my couch tonight because I need you well rested for our trip tomorrow. However, since you mentioned cockroaches and sleeping in your car, I will need to you clean yourself and your clothing tonight."
Amy nodded as she looked down at the papers. A shower and a safe place to sleep sounded like heaven.
"Wait. Don't you have any questions for me?" Amy asked.
"I feel that I have researched you enough to feel comfortable with this transaction. However, you should call your mother. She's worried about you. However, she knows that you are spending the holidays with your boyfriend and his family."
"You called my mom and told her you are my boyfriend?"
"Yes. How else would I have gotten her to trust me? You are so naive, Dr. Fowler," Sheldon explained with a scoff. Then he left Amy alone in her lab.
Sheldon was certainly a weirdo, but he wasn't a dangerous weirdo. Amy did her own research on him, including friending him on Facebook and following him on Twitter. His friends seemed normal. And as five came closer, Amy couldn't believe that she was doing this, but she decided to go to Texas with Dr. Cooper.
Sheldon appeared in her doorway right at five for his ride home. He had his bag and jacket.
"How cold is it in Texas?" Amy asked as she joined him in the hall. Most of her winter wardrobe was either ruined by the flooding or weeded out because she lived in Southern California.
"It is warm there this time of year. You should be fine," he told her as he followed her to her car.
"I guess I should order my ticket when I get to your home," Amy said as confirmation that she was doing this.
"Oh. I already did that. You can pay me back whenever it is convenient."
Of course he did. Amy thought that Dr. Cooper must nearly always get exactly what he wanted because he was so sure that she would join him. She almost envied his confidence.
They drove to Sheldon's apartment where Amy dropped off her clothes in the washing machine before hauling her empty suitcase up to the fourth floor of the building.
"Hello, Leonard. This is Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. She's going to be staying with us tonight and then flying with me to Texas tomorrow. Dr. Fowler, this is Leonard Hofstadter, my roommate," Sheldon introduced as soon as they walked in.
"Hello," Amy muttered. She lifted her hand in a wave, but then Sheldon pushed her towards the bathroom so that she could take a shower. He really was uncomfortable with her mention of roaches. He was tempted to burn his clothes just from riding in her car.
"Why is the new, weird neurobiologist staying in our apartment and then going to Texas with you?" Leonard asked.
"Her name is Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, and she is pretending to be my girlfriend for the weekend in exchange for housing since her apartment is currently under construction."
"Your mom can't possibly be so bad that it's worth taking a stranger home," Leonard argued.
"She tricked me into four dates last time I went, Leonard. I'm not subjecting myself to that again. I may need to pretend to be a little lovey dovey with Amy Farrah Fowler, but at least it will be at my digression. Plus, she won't fall in love with me."
"Whatever. She better not steal anything from us while she's here."
"She won't. She has a perfectly clean record. She graduated summa cum laude from UCLA, and she works at CalTech with us."
"You know your mom is going to see right through all of this, right?"
"She has given her whole life to an invisible man in the sky. I think I can fool her for one weekend."
Leonard was going to argue, but Amy returned to the living room in just a towel. She didn't have anything to wear until her other clothes were finished downstairs because she assumed that Dr. Cooper wouldn't want her to put back on her dirty clothes.
"Oh, right. I was going to get you something to wear," Sheldon said as he stared at her. He didn't like that his first reaction was to look her up and down, but he did notice that she had very nice legs. Not that he cared about that sort of thing.
"Want me to see if Penny has anything?" Leonard offered. It was clear that Dr. Fowler was a little uncomfortable there in just a towel. "Penny?" Leonard shouted as he made his way to the back of the apartment. Amy stood there awkwardly looking at the floor. She could see Sheldon out of the corner of his eye. He looked like he was trying, but failing not to look at her. When Leonard returned, it was with a beautiful blonde woman Amy had already seen in photos on Sheldon's Facebook page. She had a t-shirt and sweatpants in her hands, which she handed to Amy immediately.
"Thanks," Amy said with a nod. She went back into the bathroom to change.
"I would have let her borrow some of my clothes," Sheldon explained.
"Your clothes on that tiny girl? I don't think that would have worked," Penny scoffed.
"It might have," Sheldon said, but he realized that Amy was much smaller than he first realized when she came out in Penny's clothes. The smaller clothes fit better than Amy's own. He wondered if she had some sort of money problems. Her credit was good, but between her lack of housing and that her clothes didn't fit, he suspected that she might not have enough money.
"Thanks. I'm Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. I'm Dr. Cooper's… friend," Amy said as way of introduction to Penny.
"Right. You are going to play his girlfriend for the weekend?"
"Yes," both Sheldon and Amy said at once.
"Keep that up. That was cute," Penny assured them with a smile. She thought that this Amy might make a very cute girlfriend to Sheldon. Plus she had seen enough Hallmark movies to think that it might head that way.