I think, a big part of the fandom is waiting for it and due to the many, many hints we already got throughout all the seasons, I think it's likely that it will happen: the Shamy having kids.

I've had this multichapter-story in my mind for a while now and I finally wanna give it a try. It will be more like a drama, but I know I won't be able to do without jokes. In every story that I write, somehow the funny moments slip in on their own, I can't help it :-D. So, probably tragicomedy would be the right category for this.

For this story, I will also assume that Sheldon has been diagnosed as an Asperger's autist. Therefore, it will have a loose connection to my story "The Otherness Discovery".

It all started with a call from Amy's father, telling her that her great cousin Robert had died in the age of 76. After his wife had passed away some years ago, he had been living alone in their little house in the country near Los Angeles. They had never had any children, so Amy's father and two of his cousins had been the only people who ever had been looking after him from time to time.

Amy wasn't mourning that much, to be honest. She hadn't known this great cousin very well and only had met him once at some family party in her childhood, when some great aunt or uncle she even knew less, turned 80. But she knew that her Dad always had had a special place in his heart for that man (although he had never told him that so clearly) and therefore she wanted to help him get through his grief and assist him with all the paperwork and other jobs that had to be done. Especially with cleaning out the house she had never been at and preparing it for sale.

Sheldon didn't want to come with her at first, but Amy could persuade him into doing so by telling him that her Dad considered him family and that in moments like this, the family is expected to help. Furthermore, this great cousin possibly could have had some precious piece of old furniture or artwork they could sell on eBay and that Sheldon was the only person who was able to recognize hidden beauties that other people were even not looking at twice. Saying that, she put her arms around his body tightly and laid her head on his chest, thinking back of the day in the coffee shop many, many years ago, when Sheldon had secretly taken a second glance at her. At least Raj and Howard had told her so.

The property lay a bit isolated from the rest of the village. They stopped the car besides the road and exited. Long, dry blades of grass brushed against Amy's ankles and calves. The wind was rushing slightly through the bushes nearby, somewhere in the distance they could hear the sound of a tractor.

"I have to warn you," Amy's father said. "The property is rather dilapidated. I suggest we concentrate on the living room and go through his papers, first. The we can have a look at his other belongings. You both have your rubber gloves and the Purell, right?"

Amy and Sheldon both nodded. Then they took each other's hands and entered the garden. Or, what could have been a garden long time ago.

The paved path that was leading to the house was overgrown with weeds, tiny trees were sprouting in the fugues. From an old tree next to them (obviously the parent of all that sprouts) a big, dead branch was hanging down. Probably it once had been broken by a heavy storm some years ago and never been removed. Overall, on the dry, long grass, heaps of compost or old, broken furniture could be spotted.

They arrived at the house. Next to the door, that had a long crack in its glass pane, was a pile of broken electronic equipment and other trash. An old-fashioned TV stood next to a tatty fridge, on top of it some old paint buckets, stacked into each other. Clearly they had been used for a lot of different things over the last years, once the paint had been consumed. There was a rusty bicycle which was almost completely covered by a creeper, a broom and a spade standing next to it. Some more paint buckets full of indefinable trash… And between all this a huge bush of red roses and some yellow and orange flowers, that tried to reach for some light, being the last remaining witnesses of the beautiful flowerbed that once used to be at this place. "Marigolds," Amy's Dad (a retired botanist) remarked. "Somehow they are able to reproduce every year, even under the most adverse circumstances."

Sheldon already had enough. He had seen enough to know that this place would cause him a huge panic attack. And that probably they wouldn't find any treasure here that could bring them a pretty little money on eBay. But he had given Amy and her Dad his promise. He would help them.

They on unlocked the door, almost stumbled over the pile of advertising mail and newspapers that had been thrown through the mail slot recently, and then became aware of an awful smell. It emerged from a half empty bowl of dog's or cat's food (what was the difference, anyway?), but fortunately (at least for Sheldon) no animal could be seen around.

Walking across the sticky floor, they passed a table with a dirty coffee mug, an overflowing ashtray and an unfolded TV magazine. A dirty undershirt was lying over the back of a chair.

Then they entered the bedroom. The bed was made in a clumsy way, the flowered bed linen being greasy and creased. The ugly green teddy bear sitting on top, which was holding a heart with the labeling "I love you" in his hands, almost made Sheldon storm off the room. But it was Amy's father who finally made him lose his nerves:

"You know, Robert was a proud man who never wanted to ask for help, although he would have needed it desperately. Therefore, he had to give up on the garden a long time ago, but he always tried to keep this house as proper and clean as possible. Which was hard for him, because when his wife died, he even didn't know how to prepare a sandwich on his own." He looked at the bed with a sad smile. "He didn't manage to change the linens very often, but when he did, once or twice in a year, he always prepared a fresh pillow for his late wife, too."

Sheldon couldn't bear it anymore. He had to get out of here. Out of this place, that was not only highly unhygienic, but (and this was even worse) that was screaming from desperate loneliness in every corner so much, that even him, Sheldon Cooper, could recognize it.

Outside, in front of the house again, next to the old TV, he found a big chump of wood that Robert apparently had used for chopping firewood. There were notches on the top everywhere and a rusty ax stuck inside it. Sheldon needed a place to sit. He tucked at the ax. It wouldn't move. He tried harder. Still not moving. Hell, what would king Artus say to that? He used all his power and finally he could get the ax out of the wood. Breathing heavily, Sheldon sat down on the chump, put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He didn't even think of disinfecting them first.

What a nightmare was this? Not only for himself, Amy and her Dad, who had to take care of this house now... How lonely and empty must the last years of his life have been for this great cousin Robert? He had never met him, but seeing his house where he had lived, Sheldon felt really sorry for this unknown person. Everything here was showing that there had been nothing and nobody in that man's live that made him really care for anything. Not for himself, his health, his personal hygiene or his garden or his house. Ok, for the house he had tried to care, but he had been failing tremendously. There just had been nothing worth living for him in the last years of his life. Only the cat. Or the dog. That still was absent. Maybe even that was just a phantom in the end. Although the bowl full of food would be very creepy then.

"Are you ok?" Suddenly there was Amy's voice, directly next to him. He looked up and shook his head. „Not really, no."

„What's up? Is it the dirt and the clutter that's bothering you?"

"It's only a part of my problem. But all this makes me so… sad… and sorry… I guess I just feel sympathetic for your great cousin Robert."

"My Dad and me feel it, too." She sat down on the broken TV. "And I am very happy that you're developing some sense of empathy for other people. Even such people you have never known. That gives me some hope. But I sense there's something more to it, isn't it?"

"Yeah, maybe." He was looking down on the floor again. In reach of his feet, there was a wormy, molding apple that must have fallen from one of the trees around them. He rolled it towards him with the tip of his shoe and started playing with it. It was disgusting, but it reminded him of the footbag he had possessed some years ago and when he played with it, he didn't have to answer immediately. At least he thought so.

"Sheldon, please tell me what's bothering you."

He breathed in and out deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. "I don't want to end like him, Amy. I don't want you to end like him."

"Why do you think we would end like him?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it? Maybe one day, you and I will buy a house similar to this one. Or maybe an apartment in the city, who knows if the internet speed in the country will be better in the future. We will live there together, enjoying our time with each other, when we're not at work, of course. Then there will come the day when we will retire. I probably will refuse to stop my work at university at first, but they will force me to leave. After a while, it will be ok for me. I still will have my hobbies like Star Wars and Star Trek and maybe I could even start doing space journeys. After all, it's the future, we're talking about. And of course, I will have you. Maybe there even still will be our friends around. But honestly, nobody can guarantee it. It's possible they decide to live somewhere else in the future. And then" he breathed in and out again deeply "then one day will be the day when you die and leave me alone. Or when I die and leave you alone. Unless we both die together, for example in a car accident. Or when a meteor hits our house." He looked at her again, tears were starting to brim in his eyes. "But it's more likely that one of us will be alone at the end of their life. And that frightens me a lot. Not because of the household. I know how to use a washing machine, even better than you do. But because even I can see that this house reflects the state of the soul of its owner. And I don't want my soul to look like that ever."

He put his arms around her waist and laid his head on her thighs. Amy caressed his head.

"I'm afraid of that stage of life, too. But hopefully, we will have a lot of years in advance to get prepared for it. And maybe, we also will have kids and grandchildren who will help us through it and who will give our life a new sense after we both have received our Nobel prize."

"But then we should start making some. The sooner, the better. Let's start now! It needs some time until they will be adult!"

Amy stopped moving her hand. "You want to have kids with me? Soon? Now?"

Sheldon sighed. "I'm not looking very forward to have a baby or a toddler in the house, to be honest. But since it's the only possibility of having a progeny, I think we'll have to soldier through it, don't we?"

Amy sighed, too. "I guess we should talk about it when we're at home, again. Now let's go and help my Dad."

I've read some very nice stories where Amy gets pregnant by mistake.

And I have read some other very nice stories where Amy and Sheldon have the heartfelt wish to have a cute, little baby.

Well, in this story they will mostly get pregnant because it's the only possibility to have adult offspring one day. And to prevent themselves of living the sad life of great cousin Robert. (Well, honestly I don't know how the life of an old, lonely man looks like exactly in California. But in Germany, it sadly very often looks like I have described it here.)

This whole approach may sound a little "cold", but please remember that in this story Sheldon is an Asperger's autist who sometimes has a very different view of the world than the rest of us.

So, I'm excited to hear your thoughts! :-)