A/N: Based on last week's episode, The Colonization Application. No spoilers for upcoming tapings (the future stuff mentionned in this fic is pure wishful thinking).

As always, I don't own any of the characters - I only wish Shamy did own Giuseppe.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be. The thought jumps into Sheldon's mind, and, well, it's not true - not technically. He actually can think of about a billion other places he'd rather be than a pet store. His room, for example, or Hogwarts, or the Enterprise. Maybe even Mars, if he is chosen. But when he thinks that there is nowhere else he'd rather be, he means with Amy. He's always found it a bit of a cliché, that home is where the heart is — he's mocked Leonard on that topic quite a few times over the years — but maybe it's true. After all, clichés often become clichés for a reason, don't they? And when he's like this, his hand tightly clapsed around hers, his heart pounding a little too fast, his eyes bright and his smile wide, he has to hand it to the saying: Amy is his home, and this trip to the pet store nothing less than another stepping stone in their relationship, for today, they're vitually starting a family.

"Well, this is it," Sheldon says to the seemingly empty room. Amy's gone home, now, the warmth of her embrace still lingering in his mind, but Sheldon can't allow himself to relive that moment, no matter how much he only wants to think of the swell of her small breasts pressing into his chest and the softness of her hands settling on his back and the smell of her hair engulfing his nostrils. He has work to do, for he has a guest, now — a permanent guest, an extension of his and Amy's love.

Taking Giuseppe into his hands, he proceeds to show him around the appartment.

"This is the living room. We all meet up here very often, so this is probably where you'll spend most of your time if you want to hang out with your aunts and uncles. I should warn you not to accept any drink from Auntie Penny - there is a 9 in 10 chance that it'll be alcohol."

Rolling his eyes at Penny's alcoholism, Sheldon goes on. "This couch is where all the fun takes place, son. Your uncles and I have defeated countless of virtual demons sitting on these very cushions, and I... well, I defeated a couple of other demons of my own with your Mommy on here. But you're too young to hear about that," he adds, blushing a little as he remembers finding second base on this very couch, a couple of weeks ago. Over Amy's cardigan, of course — she's a lady and deserves to be treated with respect — but Giuseppe is only a child and definitely doesn't need to hear about it, no matter how chaste the carress was.

"Now here is the kitchen island. For some reason, which is that both Uncle Leonard and I hate cooking, we rarely ever use it. Your Mom and I have a lot of tea dates around here, though, and we quite like to be alone for these, so I'm afraid you're going to have to hang out in my room when we want some alone time."

That's the next step on the tour, as Giuseppe won't ever use the bathroom, and there's no reason why he'd want to visit Leonard's bedroom. Sheldon pushes the door open and turns on the light. "This is where I sleep," he says to the turtle in hand. "No one is allowed here but me. Your Mom does come in, sometimes, but... it's scary. And you're definitely too young to ask why."

At first, the whole arrangement runs smoothly. Amy comes over almost every day, and she gets to see Giuseppe almost as much as Sheldon does. She says she's looking forward to his first sleepover at her place, but as it turns out, the time never comes. After two months, and the knowledge that Comic Con won't be for another couple, she tells Sheldon that they need to talk. Her voice is low and her eyes troubled, but their friends knock on the door before she has time to say what it is she wants to talk about, so Sheldon spends the whole evening squirming in his spot, going through all the scenarios he can think of (from "I've been chosen to go to Mars, but you can't come with me" to "Barry Kripke proposed to me and I'm thinking of saying yes").

By the time the door has closed behind Howard and Bernadette, Raj and Emily, and Leonard and Penny, Sheldon is positively terrified. He jumps on her at the first chance he gets, walking from his spot to where she is busy in the kitchen with the kettle.

"What did you want to talk about, Amy?" he asks, already going through all the answers he could give her — whether it is "You can't go to Mars without me, I love you" and "You can't marry Kripke, I love you."

"Right," Amy says. "It's about Giuseppe."

Sheldon looks behind him, spotting their turtle happily strolling on the floor by his desk. "What about him?"

"He's over here all the time," she says, taking the kettle off the stove and setting it on the kitchen island, "and I know that was the arrangement, but the truth is, I feel more like I'm visiting him than owning him, if you see what I mean?"

Sheldon doesn't, actually, not really, because, well, Amy's here all the time. Probably even more than Penny, and she only lives a hall away. But he's learnt not to contradict his girlfriend, so as he reaches into the cupboard to grab their mugs, he simply asks if there's anything he can do about it.

"Well, I was thinking — maybe we could go with shared custody. One week at your place, one at mine, regardless of whether or not you're home. You know, it's very frequent now for children with divorced parents."

The word "divorced" isn't one Sheldon was ready to hear, and his mind briefly goes blank as he gasps. "Are you suggesting you want to terminate our relationship?" he asks, his hand holding their mugs mid air.

"Oh, no! Absolutely not!" Amy exclaims, grabbing the mugs from his hands and setting them on the table. "No, I'm not saying that at all." She reaches on her tiptoes and kisses him on the cheek, an apologetic smile gracing her features as she adds "I love you, Sheldon. I don't ever want to break up with you."

Sheldon releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and he sits down as Amy grabs his tea box. "Chamomile, shall we?" and as Sheldon nods, she puts tea bags in their mugs. Sheldon grabs the kettle as she sits down, pouring the boiling water in the yellow mug first, and then in the blue one.

"The children from divorced parents thing was only an analogy, Sheldon. To tell you it does happen."

"So, Giuseppe would change home every week?"

"He would indeed. Of course, we could visit as much as we'd want. I would even gladly drive you from and to Pasadena if you don't want to take the bus for Glendale."

"But what about his tank?" Sheldon asks, looking over to the glass container in which Giuseppe spends his nights. "It's quite big."

"Well, I guess we could buy another one that I would keep in Glendale, so we don't have to move this one every week and take the risk of breaking it."

The plan sounds fair and correct, but, to be honest, there is something about it that doesn't sit quite well with Sheldon, something that leaves him with the bitter taste of frustration at the back of his mind. But he can't really deny Amy, can he? They did buy Giuseppe together, after all, and she is covering half of his food expanses too. And so Sheldon agrees.

It runs smoothly enough, the first few months. Every Sunday, Giuseppe moves home, going to live at Amy's one week, and coming back to Los Robles Avenue the following week. Sheldon is still bothered by the whole arrangement, although he's not quite sure why, but it makes Amy happy, and isn't that what truly matters? Whenever she takes Giuseppe into her car on the way to Glendale, she has this huge smile that Sheldon loves so much, the one he came to associate with Date Nights and Kissing Experiments. Sometimes, he wonders if that smile is the reason why he's not completely on board with this whole share custody thing. Maybe he's... well, not jealous, because, come on, Giuseppe is a turtle, but maybe he's still annoyed that he has to share this special smile with someone else now, even if that someone is green and has a shell.

It runs smoothly enough the first few months, but then Comic Con week-end happens and all hell breaks lose. Well, Comic Con in itself is great — Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, Howard, and Emily (who surprisingly is really, really into nerd culture) don't even have to queue, this year, because James Earl Jones got them VIP passes. Sheldon meets a lot of people he admires, and though he spends half the week-end metaphorically kicking himself in the butt for missing last year's Comic Con and Leonard Nimoy's last appearance (stupid train trip), he really has a great time. But as they come back from the con, Leonard and Penny gather everyone in the living room. Amy's here, of course — she's bringing Giuseppe back for his week in 4A — and Sheldon grabs her hand for support without even realizing it. He knows where this is going, he can see it in the spring in Leonard's steps and the light in Penny's eyes, and he doesn't like it, not one bit.

They can't wait anymore, and they're getting married in two weeks, they say. It means that two weeks from now, Sheldon will be back to living alone. Everyone gets up and embraces Leonard and Penny and gushes about "oh my gosh there is going to be so much to plan in so little time" (like that's not what happened already when Howard and Bernadette got married, really, his friends' memory spans are truly frightening sometimes), and that's when Sheldon puts his finger on what has been bothering him since Amy suggested shared custody. Slowly but surely, the unit he's come to call his home — Leonard, Amy, Giuseppe, Penny, even, sometimes, when she's not bothering the life out of him — is breaking down. First, Giuseppe is given the treatment reserved to children of divorced parents and now, Leonard and Penny are leaving him to live all on his own just because they want to be having legal, married coitus? This is not going how he wants it, none of it, not at all.

After a few weeks of Leonard and Penny's wedded bliss and new living arrangements, Sheldon gets used to the idea that Leonard's room isn't right next to his. He's not that far, after all, and while he misses saying good night to his best friend in morse code every night, they at least have text messages. That works out rather well (well, except for that time he meant to text Amy and accidentally texted Leonard and his ex-roommate found himself opening a message saying "I love you to Mars and back xoxo").

But Giuseppe being torn between two houses is still eating at him. There's something truly annoying in playing parents to the turtle with Amy in Glendale when, at the end of the night, he has to take a bus back to Pasadena and his empty flat. And it's not much better when Giuseppe is staying in Pasadena and he has to watch Amy going back to Glendale, either. Sure, their turtle is still here with him, but... well, Amy isn't, is she?

And he knows they love each other, very, very much, and they've shared a bed a few times, when Amy was too tipsy to drive home or Sheldon too tired to take the bus, and his hand has even recently found its way underneath her tee shirt and onto the smooth skin of her stomach, and things have rarely been better between the two of them, which sometimes seems a bit unbelievable given how, just a little over a year ago, he was running away from her on a train, but still. There's something missing, here, and Sheldon tries to push that feeling away, to tell himself that they're not ready for that, that living with Amy won't ever be just a roommate thing, because, dear Lord, some of the things he wants to do to her he never, ever wanted to do to Leonard. He tries and tries and tries but it's getting increasingly hard, seeing Amy leave with Giuseppe — the only counterpoint to that feeling of hurt being the one of utter joy he gets whenever they get to sleep in the same bed — and he's not sure how much more of it he can take.

They acquired a pet because they wanted to build something, and yet, every time one of them says good night to the other and goes back to their own appartment, Sheldon feels like they're actually taking away a brick from the wall they were working on.

The last straw is the news that Howard and Bernadette are going to sell Howard's mom's house. They've kept these conversations private over the last nine months since Mrs Wolowitz's passing, and they've finally come to an agreement. Howard wanted to live in his old mother's house, while Bernadette felt like they needed a fresh start. They reached an understanding, they tell the gang, all gathered around his coffee table that Sunday night — "We're selling the house, using most of the money to buy something more modern, and investing the last part into Stuart's store. Buying shares, if you will. As Ma helped him re-open, we thought it was a nice way to keep her memory alive."

Everyone is touched and seems to think it's a great idea, everyone but Sheldon, who's not sure why his friend would want to get rid of the place he called home for so long. After his friends have all left the flat, Sheldon turns to Amy, busying herself with the kettle in the kitchen. As he watches her waltz with ease around the kitchen, opening cupboards, retrieving mugs, taking out tea bags like she owns the place, Sheldon realizes she kind of does — she kind of always has. And now seems as good a time as any to bring it up, but he's not sure how one is supposed to ask their girlfriend to move in with them. And not just as a roommate. Sheldon knows it — from the moment Amy calls this flat her home, it's only going to be a matter of time before he gives in to temptation and makes her his in all the meanings of the word. There is no denying his desire anymore.

Sheldon reckons that telling Amy he wants her with him at all times and not in Leonard's old room is quite crude. But he's standing here by his spot, watching this incredible woman he's come to call home, and he's dreading that moment of the night where she's going to get up, kiss him on the lips, grab Giuseppe's little box, and drive away. This is all so confusing, but then, suddenly, as he thinks about Giuseppe, he realizes this is it. Giuseppe was how it all started, wasn't it, that idea of them founding a family, building a life together. So maybe this is how Sheldon should bring it up.

Finding within himself a courage he would never have guessed he had, Sheldon walked to the kitchen, embracing Amy from behind as she's pouring boiling water in the blue mug and then in the yellow one. His arms snake their way under her arms her, his hand resting on her hips, and he kisses the top of her head.

"What is this about, Sheldon?" she asks, a little startled, and Sheldon can't blame her — he's grown to adore them, but he's usually not the one to initiate their hugs.

"We need to talk," he says, and even though he can't see her face, he's pretty sure she's frowning.

"Alright," she says. "We always talk, but sure."

Sheldon lets go of her and sat at the island, watching her take her own seat. Wasting no time, he says "It's about Giuseppe."

Amy raises an eyebrow. "What about him? Is he okay?"

Sheldon could tell the truth, point out the obvious, which is that Giuseppe is a turtle and given as his physical health is excellent and he cannot be plagued by emotional turmoils, of course he is okay. But that's not really going to help the point he wants to make, so he just bites down on his lip and say "Well, that's the thing. I don't think he is."

"Should we take him to the vet?" Amy asks, so alarmed that she sits straighter — if that is even possible, because her posture is always exemplary.

"I don't think a vet could help," Sheldon says, and Amy's hand flies straight to her mouth. He feels bad for making her so scared for their little turtle, so Sheldon takes her other hand in his and squeezes it. "Don't worry," he adds. "It's nothing letal."

"Then what is it?"

Sheldon takes a deep breath and admits "I don't think the living arrangement are suiting him at all anymore. I mean, the poor thing looks heartbroken and confused half the time. He gets here on Sunday nights, it takes him about five days to find his marks again, and then two days later, he's off to Glendale again."

Amy frowns. "Do you wish to go back to him being here all the time?" she asks, and Sheldon nods. "But he's my pet too," Amy pouts, and Sheldon would smile at how adorable she looks if he didn't have something terrifying and much more pressing than gushing about his girlfriend to ask her.

"Well, about that..." Sheldon lets go of Amy's hand, nervously bringing both of his around his mug. He takes a sip of his tea — blueberries, tonight — and he can feel Amy's eyes on him. He puts his mug back on the table although he doesn't let go of it, and, taking another deep breath, he says "Well, I was thinking... We got him because we wanted to build a future together, didn't we? And, well, this arrangement may still be working for you..." he said, and then he lied "for us. But..."

Sheldon stand up, then, leaving his mug on the kitchen island and bringing his hand into his hair, nervously scratching the top of it. "But it's not working for Giuseppe, and well, we wanted to be a family, so why don't we... I don't know, find another way to make that happen? One where Giuseppe isn't moving home every sunday."

Amy stares at him for a while, her eyes burning holes in his soul, and it's the most exquisite pain Sheldon's ever felt. She stares, and stares, and stars, and then she asks, her voice cracking, a bit "Sheldon... are you saying you want me to be your new roommate?"

Sheldon can see that flash of hope in her eyes, but it dies down as soon as he starts shaking his head. "Oh," she says, and then she adds, her cheeks reddening "I'm sorry for jumping to conc—"

"I don't want you to move in as my roommate, Amy. I want you to move in as my girlfriend."

Amy's jaw drops, then, but Sheldon goes on. "I want you to move in as the mother to my turtle son, as the woman I'm going to die with, as the woman I love." He looks at her, and then, he adds: "We told Giuseppe we were having him to be part of our family. It's about time we stop breaking his heart and start being just that, don't you think?"

Amy's answer never comes. Well, no, that's not true — it does come, it's just non-verbal. She's got him wrapped into a tight hug, and Sheldon's hands find their way back to her hips, where they were just mere moments before. They stand here in the kitchen for what feels like hours, her hands in his back, his hands on her hips, her hair against his cheek and his chest against hers, and as Sheldon breathes in Amy's scent, a scent he would soon wake up to every morning, he smiles to himself. Home is where the heart is, indeed.

A/N: thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little fic.