"The Groom of Fowlerstein…"
Summary: A shameless Halloween ripoff not only of "Bride of you know who" but of my Buffy story "Groom of Rosenberg"…But hey, something for Sheldon's Halloween.
Disclaimer: What's Chuck's is Chuck's…No infringement intended…
Amy has resurrected her bestie the hard way...The really hard way...
Prologue...
An evening in 2013 Pasadena...Darkness...A high-rise apartment window appearing out of the mists...Well isolated from intruding eyes...And perfectly chosen to catch ventilation at the best angles.
A heavy rainstorm, accompanied by severe gusts of wind, punctuated by blasts of thunder and lightning tears the fabric of night...
But the glow of a warm and cheery large high-definition television screen is spied through the large window...We hear a strain of harp music playing as we close up to that window...And see, scattered in chairs about the living room...The world-renowned physicist Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, the less renowned but deserving of mention as the said Dr. Cooper's significant other, neurobiologist Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, and diligently working at video game...The still less renowned Drs. Leonard Hofstadter and Dr. Rajesh Koothrapali ...And doing needlework on a bit of lace, a craftsy present designed to appeal to her mother-in-law, Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski…Along with several others hardly worthy of mention.
All in the rather casual clothes of the era...
Sheldon strides to the window, looking out at the storm...
"What a marvelous night!..." he exults... "Mother Nature at her worst...While we seven...We elegant four and three others safe within..."
"I should like to think that an irate Jehovah was aiming those thunderbolts directly at me...At the unbowed head of Sheldon Lee Cooper..." Sheldon continues grandiosely...Peering out into the fierce storm...
Uhhh…
"But not wanting to take any chances…Amy, you tell the storm you're the one calling for thunderbolts on your unbowed head."
The aforementioned Dr. Hofstadter rolls his eyes, grinning at one of the female "others"...
"But...I mustn't be too quick...Perhaps these represent an accolade for our dear Leonard...Heaven's applause to try and soothe the whimpering of our experimental physicist..."
"Hey...?"
"Well…You were kinda carrying on there about Bernie's horror story, Leonard…" Howard Wolowitz, one of the males among those not requiring notice, notes.
"Howie…" the aforementioned Bernadette, Dr. Bernadette Rosenkowski, reproving. "I was kinda flattered that Leonard was creeped out a little by my story. It's a compliment for a Halloween tale."
"Thanks…But I wasn't that 'creeped'…" Leonard insists.
"Come on, dude…" Dr. Koothrapali notes. "You were jumping out of your skin."
"Now, Rajesh…" Dr. Fowler, Amy of first name… "We were all a bit frightened…Bernadette made rather well with the ghoulish details…"
"Thanks, Amy…Though kudos to you for the anatomy details…" Bernadette beams.
"Yeah…" frown from yet another member of our merry band assembled in the apartment belonging to myself, your prologue narrator, the world-renowned as mentioned Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, and Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, of little or no renown, one Penny, an "actress" by claim and waitress by need to survive, girlfriend for the moment to the said Hofstadter of whimpering note. "Just a little too good detail…On my anatomy…Amy? How did you know I had a mole just under my shoulder blade?"
"I was wondering about that myself…" Leonard notes.
"Hardly difficult to spot when you're wearing your usual lower-than-low cut blouse or dress." Dr. Cooper notes astutely, as I so often do in life.
"You've seen her mole?" Amy cuts in… "When did you see her mole?"
"Yeah, when did you see it? And more important, did you take pictures?" Bernadette asks.
All staring… "It was for Howard…He can't ask questions like that anymore and I just figured after the song he wrote me for our date anniversary I owed him one." She beams.
"Please…People…I was performing one of my routine life-saving missions…I had to dress Penny after she dislocated her shoulder…It was there, I was there…I noted it…It was filed in my eidetic memory base…End of story, grow up." Dr. Cooper, frowning at the sad but typical lack of maturity among his hangers-on.
"Ok, getting back to the point…" Penny sighs. "Amy, where did you get all that stuff about my…Body stuff…?"
"Penny, I'm a trained anatomist as well as a neurobiologist…I get the form down with a few regular viewing…"
"Like…Viewings when?" Penny stares. "Oh, God, you haven't been coming into my apartment at night like…Ummn…Certain people."
Relieved beam from Leonard…
"Like Leonard didn't rave on about being in Penny's apartment to us…" Howard notes quietly to Bernadette.
"And Sheldon about the filthy state of the place…" Raj adds.
"No, I didn't…Honestly…Penny." Amy stares. "I wouldn't violate your privacy like that…It would scare the willies out of Sheldon if he ever heard."
"Indeed…" Sheldon notes… As indeed I would…
"Please…I just imagined what your anatomy would be like and had Leonard fill me in on a few things…Oh…I don't think I was supposed to…" Amy eyes the frantic Leonard who was now waving frantically.
"You told Amy things about my anatomy?" Penny stares at Leonard.
"Some amazing things…" Amy notes. "We couldn't use half the details in Bernadette's story."
"Hey…" Penny, forelornly…Then furious glare at Leonard…
And as for you…
He squirms back in his seat…
He always did at female intimidation…His mother once told me he use to shake so hard at her stare that a colleague once insisted he was having convulsions.
"But wasn't my Bernie terrific her first time out as our spookmeister?" Howard, cutting in to spare Leonard more suffering…
"She is an angel…" Raj, sighing…
"You think so?" Bernadette, looking up from her work, sly smile. "I'd say I disproved that."
My, Leonard was looking very much like he building to a convulsion…I have to take back my dismissal of his childhood condition. Seems Amy's grandmother, Leonard's mother's former advisor, the one who called in social services on Beverly, may have been right about his mother's potentially abusive experimental methods. Who knew…?
But after all…Meemaws always know best…
"Lets say then…An angelically gifted storyteller…" Howard, with flourish…
"That she was…" Penny nods… "Though I coulda wished not to be the bright star of that tale…"
"You weren't…" Amy notes. "I was. You were just the bestie I resurrected from the dead with spare body parts. The story was about me…The mad doctor lady who defies Heaven to save her friend…"
"Oh…Amy…" Penny gives warm if patronizing smile… "If you need to think so…Sure…Right, Bernadette?"
"Actually the story did focus on Amy…" Bernadette, perturbed. "Though it was really an allegory of the dangers of science without morality…and maybe a little chance to give a woman a major role in a sci-fi tale that wasn't girlfriend to the hero or victim of the villain…"
"Oh, please…" Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, Rajesh, Amy…In unison…
"This from the microbiologist who crossed Ebola with the common cold to see if she could…" Leonard notes.
"Hey, cryboy…I was defending you before…" Bernadette glares.
"But I was glad of the major role for a woman thing…" Amy notes. "Thank you for the chance to show my other talents…"
"You mean…Two major roles, right…?" Penny, a bit downcast…
"Of course…And you were a terrific monster, bestie."
"I know I had chills just looking at you while hearing Bernadette describe your resurrected appearance…" Raj notes.
"Rajesh, no offense…But you'd have chills just looking at any woman." Penny frowns. "But thanks…I guess."
"Come, Bernadette...Come and watch the storm..." Howard moves to her... "It's really just like that storm you described in the story."
"Not that any of us accept the idea that either lightening or cosmic rays channeled into a mass of sewn together body parts could reanimate them." Dr. Cooper carefully winning one for Scientific Reason…
"You seemed to buy it pretty well while Bernadette was telling her tale." Howard notes… "Bernie, look there…" he points to a new bolt flash, streaking the California night sky…
"You know how lightning alarms me..." she notes...Looking to Leonard.
"Leonard...? Could you turn on all the lights...All of them?..."
He rises...And begins turning on lighting...
"Look at her, guy...Such an enchanting creature...Fearful of the lightning...Afraid of the dark..."
"Typical Catholic girl…" Bernadette shrugs. "We're taught to fear everything…"
Howard smiles at her...
"And yet…Bernie, you have written a story that caused my blood to run even colder than usual...he notes, smiling at her.
"Well..." Bernadette grins... "What do you expect...? With such company, it takes more than a pretty little love story..."
"Ah...But such a story...The story of Amy Farrah Fowlerstein who sought to create living men, to restore her own best friend...From the rifled graves of cadavers..." Howard chuckles, shaking head...
"Stan Lee himself couldn't have come up with one this guaranteed to blow our minds. Is it ok if I mention…?" he eyes her.
She frowning… "Ok…But guys, this was not my idea…"
"Right…Well…I've actually taken it around to a few guys…Murray, the latest publisher I took it to, refuses to touch it...He says it's great. But the reading public would be too shocked." Howard, sighing…
"Well, that's too bad but great that they like it." Leonard notes.
"We'll see it published, I think, one day." Bernadette smiles...
Just look on a bookstore shelf, she thinks...Inwardly sighing.
Well, if some guy can do "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", I can mess a little with Mary Shelley.
"Of course I only wrote it for us…And to remind us all of the need for morality in our work."
"Well...Whatever your purpose in writing it...I adored every hideous moment..." Leonard beams...
"Absolutely…" Rajesh, Howard, Sheldon…
"Don't guys...Don't remind me of it tonight..." Bernadette nervously eyes the group...
"I savor each horror..." Sheldon sneers... "I roll them on my tongue..."
"When he's not hiding under his bed…" Leonard grins. "Sheldon, you wouldn't have the nerve to 'savor' the horror of a three year old in a monster mask…Don't hand us this."
"Excuse me?…I have an eidetic memory? The graveyard where Amy and her unholy lover and assistant Stuart waited..."
"Dramatic license…" Amy notes, a bit nervous.
"Yeah…And 'unholy'? Must we always describe me in negative terms, even in fiction?" Stuart speaks up… Stuart Bloom…Another of those not really requiring mention except that he does play a role in Bernadette's tale as Amy's lab gofer and other things I prefer not to discuss.
"Just dramatic license, Sheldon…" Amy, anxiously.
"Honey…Just enjoy at last getting some if only in fiction…This is your bestie and creation talkin'." Penny, grinning.
"Just stoking the jealousy flames a bit…" she notes quietly to Leonard's glance. "Can't hurt the good ship Shamy to have Sheldon a bit hot under the collar about Stuart again."
"To continue…The sobbing women...The first clods of earth on the coffin...
That was a pretty chill..."
"Yes, it took me an hour to get you out from under the bed…Sheldon, if you have nightmares again…I am not sitting up with you all night." Leonard, frowing.
"I volunteer!" Amy eagerly. "Please go on Sheldon, I know I want to hear this…" high-minded tone. Wink at Penny.
"Right…Amy and her unholy lover cutting the hanged woman down from where she hung, creaking in the wind..."
"The cunning of Fowlerstein..." Sheldon grins... "In her hilltop laboratory, picking together dead people to create a human monster...So fearful that only a half-crazed...And really desperate friend...Could conceive of it..."
Uh…
"Sheldon? What did I say?" Leonard frowns.
"I'm not scared…Just let me finish…" So as I'll feel like the story's over safely and the monster is safely burned alive.
"And then...The near-murders..."
"Actually…" Leonard begins…
"Tell him they really were murders and you are spending the night sitting up with him…Alone…" Penny notes.
Certainly my favorite part, Howard chimes in...
"A little girl...Almost drowned..." Ummn… "Actually that was kinda scary. I think I need to forget that scene. What did happen to her?"
"She just…Ummn…" Bernadette eyed Amy… Who mouthed words…
"It was a…Police case…"
No…I said briefcase you idiot, Amy frowning…She floated away on a briefcase like I suggested?
"I sure wasn't gonna say she floated off on some briefcase…" Bernadette notes to Howard.
"Amy Fowlerstein herself thrown from the tower by the very monster she'd resurrected..."
"And..." Raj takes Bernadette's hands... "It was these little hands that penned the horror..."
"Oh...You've made me prick myself, Rajesh!..." Bernadette gasps...
It's bleeding...she turns to Howard... Who hurries over, glaring at Raj.
Oh…My…Sheldon, naturally overwhelmed by the pressures of social contact…And the sight of blood.
"Sheldon…!" Amy grabs him as he faints.
"I do think, Bernadette..." Howard dabs at the bleeding finger with a napkin... "It's a shame you didn't continue the story..."
"Well...That wasn't the end of the story...Would you like to hear what happened after that?..." Bernadette asks...
"I'm all ears!..." Leonard comes over eagerly...
"Yes…" Sheldon, now recovered from his understandable collapse…"While Heaven blasts the night away, open up your pits of Hell..."
Just not too wide…
They all resume their seats...
"Well..." Bernadette begins...
"Imagine yourself by the old mill tower...The crowd still howling for the monster's blood...The fire is slowly burning down...Soon the gaunt rafters of the old mill will be left alone, blackened against the sky..."