Blocked on others and this is how I ease the cognitive constipation.
This will be a cross-over and I may move it but will provide link on profile.
Reparata
Chapter 1
She hadn't meant to hurt him. Her comments were shouted out at him in the heat of anger, and she was very angry with him. He stood there like a barrier island while the tsunami of her anger stormed over him, engulfed him, broke him, swept him away.
And just like the aftermath of a tsunami, when her anger abated and the waters receded, he was gone and it was as if he'd never been.
Apartment 4B
Penny woke up with a massive hangover. She tried to sit up but a large tattooed and hairy arm lay across her stomach and her legs were encased in the twisted sheets. The soreness of muscles long unused told her that she'd had some serious sex the night before but she couldn't remember a damned thing after leaving work and getting ready to party with her friends.
"I need to get up! Gonna hurl!" Magic words. The arm disappeared and she just barely made it to the bathroom. She used mouthwash and then brushed her teeth and used mouthwash again before walking out, naked as the day she was born, to see just who belonged to the hairy arm.
She heard the apartment door close and she decided 'to hell with it' and curled back up in bed, pulling the covers over her aching head. 'Why do I keep doing the same stupid thing over and over? He's right. It is ruining my life. I have got to quit drinking. I really need help. I can't do it alone.'
Apartment 4B
Penny shambled into the apartment of her best friends and headed for the coffee pot. Pouring a mug of the hot brew, she sat at the counter and tried to put together a speech that would 'engage his interest' in helping her.
Leonard walked in, half dressed and looking like crap. He obviously had had a night like she had. 'Oh God! I didn't end up with him, did I? No tattoos and he doesn't have a lot of body hair, thank God!'
"Morning, Penny. Thanks for making coffee. Man, I will never again go to a faculty mixer without a wingman. No one there to say 'Leonard, you've had too much to drink. You need to stop this right now'."
"Sounds like something Sheldon would say. Where is he? By the way, I didn't make the coffee but God bless whoever did."
"It must have been Sheldon. He's pretty good about setting up the 'inebriation recovery system' as he calls it. There were two Tylenol and a glass of ice water on the nightstand when I woke up."
Penny glanced over and saw the look that Leonard was giving her. She called him out on it.
"What's with the look, Leonard?"
"You – you were pretty brutal to him last night. I heard what you said and although I wouldn't have quite put it that way, he was sticking his nose where it didn't belong but then that's Sheldon. He thinks we make bad decisions when we're drunk. He's mostly right but just so damned annoying about it."
"I didn't see Sheldon at all yesterday, Leonard. I came home from work, took a shower and then went clubbing with some friends."
"Um, well, I woke him up when I got in and I guess he couldn't get back to sleep and I heard…"
"You heard what, Leonard? What did you hear?"
"You basically told him that he was a sexless drone with no idea at all how to deal with real people and that you never wanted to see him again."
"Basically? What exactly did I say, Leonard?" She couldn't remember anything after getting to the club except maybe, and she wasn't really sure, dirty dancing with some big guy with tattoos all over his neck and arms…
"I'm sorry, sweetie. What was that? I was thinking hard about last night."
"You yelled at him that you would 'sleep with anyone you damned well pleased,' and that he could never 'get it up for a real woman' and that no 'real' woman would have him. Then you told him you never wanted to see him again as long as you lived. But you were drunk, Penny, and he always makes allowances and excuses for you when he'd banish any of us guys. I'm sure this time will be no exception."
"That was it? That was all I said?" She desperately wanted to remember but mostly to forget that she'd lost it with gentle, caring Sheldon, her best friend in the entire world.
"Mostly, yeah. That was the crux of it. He came back into the apartment and went to bed." He couldn't meet her eyes and Penny was astute enough to know that whatever happened, Sheldon had been 'affected' by it.
"I need to talk with him and apologize. I would never say those things sober, you know that, Leonard, never."
"Sheldon's been around drunks his entire life, Penny, and he knows that the drunken man's words are the sober man's thoughts. That's what he says, anyway."
"Leonard, I never even think about Sheldon in those terms, not ever! He's my best guy friend. Where is he? It's Saturday and he should be glued to Dr. Who."
"He was gone when I woke up. Probably went into work. I wouldn't worry too much about it, Penny. He's Sheldon Cooper, PhD, and never lets what people say get to him. Just give him some space and time."
CalTech
Faculty Cafeteria
"So where's Dr. Dementia keeping himself these days? I haven't seen him in weeks." Winkle was feeling feisty and needed to either get laid or take out some of her frustrations on someone. The male faculty always provided a 'target rich' environment but not lately.
"He must be bringing his lunch from home. I hear him coming and going and working sometimes late at night but I haven't really laid eyes on him. Whatever he's working on must be pretty damned important to him. He's missed going to the Comic Book Store and Halo and – "
"I know where he goes for lunch. There's a janitor's room down in the basement and he goes there every day from 11:40 until 12:30. Then he goes to his office and locks the door. Raj and I got curious and so we followed him once to his 'lair' and he's been going there for the past two weeks at least, maybe longer."
"Really? What can he do in a janitor's closet?" Leonard's mind was blank.
"Maybe he's got a thing for the janitor? He's always been very friendly with some of the cleaning staff. He's always prattling on in Spanish with them."
"He does it to keep up his fluency. You should hear him when he does call-ins to the German radio stations. Some of those science programs really rub him wrong and he's a 'frequent caller' but not recently."
"I have an idea. Let's put a web cam in the room and watch. Maybe he's just wanting some 'private time' that he can't get at home."
"I don't know, guys. Sheldon gets pretty upset when someone violates his privacy. Howard, you're close to 'banishment' as it is."
"I do not want to have to take that damned web class of his again but I say, in the name of scientific curiosity, let's put the web cam in the room and solve this riddle."
Two days later
Apartment 4A
Howard set up the computer and tapped into the feed from the web cam. There was sound in addition to video. He had set the camera to activate on motion or sound so they wouldn't have to watch hours of darkness between Sheldon's sessions in the storage closet.
"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's show time!" exclaimed Howard.
Penny had come over for Thai Night hoping to catch Sheldon but as usual, he was absent. Winkle was there and just smirked when Penny sashayed into the apartment without knocking and took a seat on the couch beside her. Sheldon's 'spot' was of course empty.
"This isn't porn, is it, Howard? I thought you were done with that stuff now that you're married?" Penny had seen some of Howard's 'show time' things and didn't need a repeat performance.
"We're not sure. It's Sheldon's secret lair although there's nothing in there but some antique electronic equipment and a desk and chair and an old blackboard. He's written the number 43 on it for some reason. I wonder what it means? Okay, this is the recording of the past two days. I used some Mars Rover stuff to arrange an a/v feed from the hard drive in the web cam."
"You guys taped Sheldon? That's a violation of his privacy. He's going to have a fit and banish us all for life if he knows we're doing this."
"Then we won't let him know, will we, Penny?" Howard leered at Penny.
"Oh, look! There he is," squealed Penny.
The door to the room opened and Sheldon stepped in and turned on the light. Next he took off his messenger bag and took something out of it and started speaking into it.
"This is Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD and this is transit attempt #44. I daresay that my hopes for a successful transit are high despite the previous 43 failures." His image turned and fiddled with what Howard had called 'antique equipment' and then punched something into what looked like a hand-held TV remote control.
A swirling blue vortex appeared out of thin air and Sheldon laughed in delight and clapped his hands together and grabbed his messenger bag and stepped into the blue vortex and disappeared. The screen turned black.
"What the fuuuuuck – " exclaimed Lesley. "He just – disappeared into that blue thing!"
"Let me scan the file for the next activity. That occurred two days ago according to the time stamp. Has anyone seen or heard from Sheldon since then?"
No one had.
Continuation dependent on interest and my mood.
RB
