I own nothing. Hail Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady and their minions at Warners.
The Mind Expansion Realization
Science Week
Sheldon was sulking in his room. There was a sharp knock on his door. "Sheldon, it's me." Amy called, "May I open the door?"
That was a thoughtful question. So many people would knock and open the door or worse, knock and walk right in. "Yes. And you may come in." The door opened and Amy came in carrying a tray of food. She set it on the bed in front of him and closed the door.
"I brought my food too." She said, "May I sit on the bed?" He nodded and she sat across from him, tucking her feet under her. "I took all the dumplings. Jerks get no dumplings." She sounded angry.
"What if they were right?" Sheldon asked, looking haunted.
Amy hissed, "Sheldon! Listen to yourself." She broke her chopsticks apart, "As if Howard has any insight into the status or validity of your work, as if Rajesh has anything useful or factual to say about the progress of our relationship."
"A broken clock is right twice a day. I am stalled. I feel like you are losing patience with me too…" he sounded close to tears. "You'll leave me."
Rising from the bed, Amy took the tray and put it on the dresser. She considered beating him with a pillow for a moment before sitting back down. Closer than before. "I won't. I promise you, anytime I've said anything like that I have been bluffing, big time."
"What about the physical aspect of our relationship and the fact that it doesn't exist." He said sadly, "And I am not always very nice to you."
"First of all, we do have a physical relationship. It has progressed, a lot. In ways that are huge for both of us. And you've made most of the first moves. So Rajesh can suck it. Secondly, you are very nice to me. You are far nicer to me than you are to anyone else."
"Kind of damning me with faint praise." Sheldon noted. "I would never even know when to apologize without Leonard."
"Who did not make any stupid claims about your work or our relationship, and he knows more about both than either of the other two. We shall save him a dumpling." Amy nodded, then continued glowering, "And damning with faint praise would be, "Wow, Raj, that is nicest sweater vest I've ever seen you wear." And you know what? When you do apologize to me it is amazing! Seriously, amazing. Tiaras and puking on Wil Wheaton's shrubbery while threatening him with your fists? Howard and Raj should take notes."
Sheldon smiled, she was so passionately sincere, "Bring the food back over." Amy smiled back at him and got the tray. "Thank you for depriving them of dumplings."
"My pleasure." She said, arranging the tray between them. "I have to admit, I know how you feel about work. I feel like I never get to analyze my data, I am so bogged down with dissections and experiments. I need to publish. I need a forward push. You know what we need?" She appeared to have had moment of clarity.
"A time machine, a particle collider…"
"A week of science." Amy stopped him. "We just barricade ourselves away from the world and just work for a week. You know, get bunch of food, turn off the phones, the television… and just work." She stared at her chopsticks, "That just sounds like heaven."
"We could still have the internet?" Sheldon asked, starting to warm to the idea.
"Of course. We aren't going to be going to the woods to live like cavemen." Amy scoffed, "And we can only have educational recreation. Like if we need a break from work, we have to learn a new musical instrument or a foreign language." Amy looked thoughtful, "This is what we need to do. Our neural pathways are becoming so set… we need to forge new trails."
"When should we do this?" he asked.
"We could start this Saturday morning. That gives us a few days. We can meet for lunch tomorrow to discuss preparations." She looked excited at the prospect.
For the next few days, Sheldon felt inspired, challenged and energized, as he often did by Amy when she went in to scheme mode. In truth, when he'd felt blocked and frustrated before, the solutions he came up with were frequently counter-productive to put it mildly. Since Amy (aside from Stephen Hawkings) was the only person he knew of the same intellectual capabilities as he (If he could only get her to switch disciplines, he knew they could puzzle out time travel… Also, he'd had a recurring dream of making out with her in Stockholm. That had to mean she was involved with his inevitable Nobel Prize. If he believed in dream interpretation.), it comforted him to know that sometimes she felt blocked as well.
Leonard had been happy as hell to get out of the apartment for a week, electing to surprise a completely delighted Penny with a trip to Maui. So this was working out great for everyone.
For Sheldon and Amy the main focus was getting away from their usual patterns of behavior.
Rule one- No constricting clothing. Acceptable apparel including yoga clothes and various sweatshirt/pants/shorts only. For underwear, Amy's bra choice was the weirdly, supportive comfort bra she had received for her yearly "What are you trying to say, Mother?" Christmas present. And both would be required to wear boxers for underpants. And no shoes, only slippers.
Basically, they were to dress like they were on suicide watch.
Rule two- No recreational activity was allowed that they had already mastered. They resolved to learn Taiwanese as a team, Sheldon would learn to play the Oboe, Amy would learn to play Cello. Amy would teach Sheldon how to make a soufflés and Sheldon would teach Amy the origin stories of Deadpool, Green Arrow and Scott Pilgrim.
No TV, no non-work related web browsing, no gaming, texting or tweeting on their tablets or smart phones. This was where it could get ugly. But since the person they most needed to text and tweet was going to be sitting at her laptop or battling his white board, they hoped they could hold it together.
Rule three- Ask for what is needed and wanted. Help will then be given. This was going to be a shame free zone. Sheldon had specified that physical contact could be requested if needed.
No matter what Amy said, Sheldon remained privately concerned that she was frustrated with him and his pace. If hugs were on the table, it might ease the problem. Although Amy was correct, all physical contact had been initiated by him up to and including spanking. So if he initiated the hugging, then it helped this record of achievement.
The first morning, Amy showed up at 6am. She and Sheldon then drove a giddy Leonard and Penny to the airport, stopped to stock up on food for the week and returned to the apartment by 10am.
Sheldon thought Amy looked fetching in her yoga clothes, which consisted of pants, tank top and a hoodie with no closures. She explained that the road to inner peace was apparently quite stylish. She was staying in Leonard's room. Sheldon had fumigated it and bought new sheets. Sheldon was wearing long sweat shorts and only one tee shirt. He felt far less fetching. He was also wearing boxer shorts, so there was air flow thing happening to which he was unaccustomed . Maybe it would help him think.
They had resolved to start work at 2pm. That would give them time for lunch and a small orgy of web browsing.
At 9:30pm, work ceased and they had their evening sleepy time tea and work progress recap.
Amy started, "I've completed my outline, my thesis and my bibliography…"
"So you didn't write a word?" Sheldon asked shrewdly.
"I also organized my graphs, illustrations and brain scans," she ignored the question.
"Amy…"
"I wrote the thesis and outline!" she snapped. "So I wrote almost 800 words."
"Good job," he smiled condescendingly. "I've been a little more productive. The equation seems to be spawning new equations. This is string theory at its most basic." He shuddered with delight.
Amy beamed, "That's wonderful. Tomorrow night you can present your findings. And I will have written something more substantial."
"That is agreeable… can we watch television?" he asked, trying to seem casual.
"You know that we cannot." Amy gazed at the flat screen with longing. "We must have discipline or else we are the equals of Raj and Howard. Should we start with Taiwanese or would you like to teach me about Deadpool?"
Neither sounded good to him.
"We could make cookies." He suggested, diving into the cupboards.
"We know how to make cookies, Sheldon. That won't blaze any exciting neural trails…" Amy said, when he handed her a bag of chocolate chips. Then she snapped her fingers, "Unless… Let's do Cookie Wars!"
Sheldon frowned, "Is that a part of Star Wars fandom I am unfamiliar with."
"No. It will be like Cupcake wars! We make a list of all the ingredients in the apartment, except for regular cookie ingredients, we include even things like soy sauce and taco chips. Then we draw three out of a hat then we have to create an original cookie recipe using them"
"That sounds exhausting. Physically and mentally." Sheldon said. "Let's do it."
Amy drew high fiber cereal, frozen peas and Worchester sauce, Sheldon drew light beer, dill pickles and oreo cookies. Once the cookies had been conceived, baked, tasted, spit out and thrown away in disgust, the couple judged the day a success and decided to go to bed.