Sheldon Cooper hated people. Even the people he spends most of his time with, but so often regrets, he merely puts up with because of, what he calls, our species' most primitive and menial demands for social interaction. And most people understood. In fact, most people didn't want this interaction with Sheldon, so people kept their distance, especially at Caltech where he works. Students never stopped by his office. Other professors and administrators approached him cautiously in the lab, but only when necessary. It wasn't fear, as Sheldon like to believe, people just didn't want to put up with his nonsensical, snide remarks. Yet, one afternoon, one girl ignored the rumors and warnings, and even the sign he posted outside his office discouraging everyone from stopping by unannounced.

Of course, the one time Sheldon felt comfortable enough to leave his office unlocked while he made a run to the lab, he came back to find an intruder. If the girl's presence in his office, sitting too comfortably with legs crossed, startled him, he didn't show it. Dr. Cooper simply angled towards her, expressing his usual apathy and mild interest.

"Hello." He seemed polite, but before she could greet him or introduce herself, he said in one long breath, "Since you either possess a perception deficiency or belong to the sad percentage of illiteracy in this prolific country (seeing as you failed to take the heed of my note), we may skip formalities, names; i.e. whoever you are or whatever you want, so that we may try this again." He put down his documents to take her by the shoulders and guide her forcibly out of his office. "We will start by you leaving, of course," he said before pushing her out of the room and shutting the door.

Then as he turned back to retrieve his papers, there was a timid knock, to which he chose to ignore. Sheldon flipped through the documents, reviewing his research, when he heard the knocking again- more confident and persistent this time.

"Go away," he sang over his shoulder.

But the knocking continued.

"Dr. Cooper? Dr. Cooper!"

Sheldon exasperated with the cave of his chest before cracking open his door, just wide enough to reach for his sign. He plucked it from the wall and stuck it to the girl's face. "You can reach me by email if you need an appointment."

"Dr. Cooper-!"

"Good day," he tried shutting the door but she threw her body into the office, falling through his barrier and landing on top of the physicist.

"Help! Help!" Sheldon squealed on the floor, writhing and pounding bones and fists. "Security! Security! University police!"

The girl covered his gasping mouth with one hand and tore the sign from her face with the other in a panic. "Shutup! Shutup!"

Sheldon was surprised at his attacker. Most girls who had pinned and beaten him in the past lied on the more butch side of femininity. This girl, however, resembled the more, what he called, "the archetypical woman": petite, dainty, and bearing small, symmetrical facial features. These were the kind who used sex and silence as their weapon of choice. Though small, her face was fierce, erupting in irritation, an expression he was accustomed to seeing on his neighbor Penny.

"Oh no," he groaned through her tiny fingers, "not another one!"

"Look," she said, "I'm sorry mister but this is an emergency." Her face was cooling but warmed again in embarrassment. With the paper in her face as she fell, it had taken her a moment to realize she was chest-to-chest, stomach-to-stomach, and even a little skin-to-skin with the man. She released him and scooted off - repeating her apologies. "I just," she tugged at her auburn hair, "I just need your help."

"Well a fax would have sufficed! You needn't attack me!"

"I'm sorry! But I had to see you personally, and I couldn't just leave-" She stopped herself, feeling a bit warm again. She realized how insane she sounded, but hell, she was desperate.

"What is this 'emergency'?"

She straightened her back and her petite features fell into a serious expression. "Dr. Cooper, my name is Lily Wood, and I wish you might consider making me your assistant."

It sounded rehearsed. Not even well rehearsed, he thought.

"No-"

"I know! I heard you never accept assistances," she said quickly, "but please, I'm begging you to reconsider."

Instead of humoring her case or explaining his firm refusal, Sheldon pursed his lips irritably. "You call this an emergency?"

"I'm-"

"The discovery of spatial quantization of angular movement in anything greater than a three dimensional space- now that's an emergency!"

"Um," she frowned for a second, "right, you know, you're totally right, but-"

"You don't know molecular biology, do you?"

"Of course, I do!"

"Oh for Heaven's sake!" Sheldon cried. "Obviously not, since that is one of the simpler notions of quantum mechanics, not molecular biology!" He muttered under his breath, "Good lord."

"Only because you tricked me! I was confused!"

"Fine." Sheldon crossed his arms and asked, "Then tell me, what is the uncertainty principle?"

Lily scrunched her face together and guessed, "Pi?"

Sheldon narrowed his eyes and said mockingly, "Like totally."

"Look, Dr. Cooper, please." Her voice was growing thick in desperation. "You don't understand how important this is."

"Just because your pursuit of acting or modeling or any other remedial choice of career path is getting, much to your surprise, nowhere with your current waitressing jobs and," he looked her up and down, "possible drug use, does not mean I will hire an assistant whose incompetence is simply flabbergasting."

Before Lily could further plead her case, a tall man in uniform entered the office. "University police," he announced. "We heard shouting."

Sheldon threw down his crossed arms with an irritated sound. "Well approximately one minute, forty-nine seconds ago! If this woman had the intent to kill, the entire hallway would be reeking of death and my released bowels by now!"

Both looked at Sheldon with a look of disgust, confusion, and an awkward ignorance of how to retreat.

"Well," the security man coughed, "I'll just show the young lady out then."

"Thank you!" Sheldon squeaked.

In the hallway, the security guard shook his head. "That guy's a real piece of work. You know, one of us has to run down here all the time thanks to that nut."

"Great!" Lily groaned. "So he's always like that?"

"Afraid so," he came to a stop by the front door of the building, standing between Lily and the outside world. "What were you doing there anyway? You don't seem like, you know, the science type." He leaned back and looked at her as if it were a compliment.

"What do you mean?" she asked with a frown forming.

He shrugged with a wide grin. "I mean you don't look like you belong here with these guys." He laughed and pointed with his thumb, "especially not that Cooper guy."

Lily laughed awkwardly, unsure how to react. "Really."

"C'mon. You're too, I dunno… cute I guess, to be hanging around here. Only sciencey, super Trekie nerds come around here."

Lily readjusted the strap of her purse. "You're saying I'm not 'sciencey'?" Her tone was declining in awkward tension and accelerating with defiance and frustration.

"Well no, I-"

"I'll have you know," she interjected loudly with a jabbing finger, "I am just as smart and nerdy and Trekie and-and-and sciencey! I do belong here!"

He lifted his palms up in defense. "Woah, okay! You don't need to go all Doctor-Cooper-crazy on me."

Lily shoved the man with the full force of her body, which only pushed him a few feet away. "Don't you talk about Dr. Cooper!" She regained her composure before marching out of the building with a misplaced gleeful smile that shined and stretched from cheek to cheek.

"I am his assistant after all!"

Making his way up the flights of stairs in his apartment building, Sheldon was mumbling low to himself- wondering how he ended up in California. "I should be in Germany, Berlin perhaps, or maybe Frankfurt or Gottingen. I mean, that's where Max Born formulated the standard interpretation of the probability density function in quantum mechanics from Schrodinger's equation; of course it's also where he met Einstein and James Franck."

Like usual, Sheldon found himself breathless outside his door. He would get so caught up in his thoughts, he wouldn't realize how fast he would walk, stomp, and even climb. Sheldon scowled, thinking of how Penny always chides him for it.

"You always lose track of time when you argue with yourself! And I've seen you run into walls when you start getting serious," she once said. "You think too much, you need to think less."

So then Sheldon was stuck in the maze of mapping the logic, mechanics and algorithms of what, Penny claims, is thinking "too much" as he stepped inside his apartment. He was taken off guard to see all his male comrades sitting around staring at him. He made a quick, nervous gesture to look over his shoulder before asking, "Yes?" Surely, he thought, they understood by now the boundless limitations of his paranoia.

They all sat staring at him with baffled frowns and Howard's iconic pained look. Then they exchanged looks while shifting in their seats and opening their mouths to speak but grunt instead.

"Well," said Sheldon, "I do say I am absolutely buzzing from all your intelligent exchange of words but I have the new issue of Marvel to see to."

"Sheldon," Leonard interjected, "why is there a girl calling for you?" He looked confused at the same time trying not to laugh.

"Well I can't know about that," he said with Raj and Howard listening intently. "I am neither this girl nor a mind reader. If I were, I would know which one of you keeps off-centering the coffee table."

"This girl keeps calling here saying she has to talk to you-?"

Howard added with that creepy brow movement of his, "She said it's urgent she talks to you right away."

"Yeah," chimed in Raj, "and her name is Lily!" He held up his hands as if her name was displayed in suspension between them.

Sheldon dropped his bag in irritation. "Oh, good! More reason to fly off and take refuge in Germany."

"Shel-"

"Did she leave her number?"

"Yeah," said Leonard, handing him a post-it note with seven digits scrawled across it.

"Delightful." He reached for the phone and began dialing a number. "Now, I only need to contact our service provider to have this rogue pixie from Hell blocked from all our lines."

"Woah, woah, woah!" Leonard snatched the phone from Sheldon's hand. "Now wait a minute, Sheldon. Let's see what she wants first. I mean, let's face it, you may never get this chance with a lady again."

"First, Leonard, you should leave the attempts at humor to Howard who is a decimal degree greater in the respected area; second, I already know what this 'lady' wants, and I can say with confidence," he snatched back the telephone, "it most certainly is not as stimulating as you all may be insinuating."

"Then what is it?" asked Raj.

As Sheldon dialed their phone service, he simply replied, "Sex."

Raj looked shocked, but Howard guessed with his annoyed expression, "Bazinga?"

"Correct. Oh!" he said into the phone. "Hello, yes! My name is Sheldon Cooper and I believe I have the contact information of a person I'd like to restrict." He opened his mouth to respond to something said but stopped with a baffled frown. "Well, preferably forever."

Raj slumped his shoulders. "I guess we're stuck with Amy Fowler, then."

Howard agreed, "I don't think Sheldon will ever have another girlfriend."

"Yeah," said Leonard, "any potential (suitee/ candidate) he'll apply for a restraining order against."

Sheldon put his hand over the receiver. "No, I tried that. My lawyer says there's not enough 'just cause'."

There was a sudden knock at the door, and since Sheldon was closest and put on hold, much to his chagrin and objections, he answered it- only to shut it again immediately. "Oh, yes," Sheldon said into the phone as he wandered over to the balcony window, "I'm still on the line." And while he persisted to make various complaints about customer care, Leonard shuffled quickly to open the door.

"C-Can I help you?" He wished he had said it much smoother, but he wasn't expecting to see a girl.

"Yes, I'm so sorry to impose like this, but I'm Lily Wood and-"

"You're Lily?" Leonard asked with his awkward finger point.

"Um, yes?"

"Come in, come in!" He sang gleefully as he led her into the apartment.

A loud, dramatic and vowel-stretched "no" sounded and reverberated from across the room as Sheldon held his arms outstretched. "Leonard! How could you!"

"Dr. Cooper!" Lily hurried over with her hands clenched together. "Please, just hear me out!"

Sheldon, finding himself suddenly cornered, held up the phone as a weapon, screaming "back, back!"

"Yeah, Sheldon, just hear her out," Leonard said in his usual tone of thinning patience.

"That can be the policeman's job when I- hey!"

Leonard grabbed the phone away as if from a disruptive child. "Give me that!" He let Lily sit in his chair, saying, "Don't worry about him, he's just-" he paused to find the right word, and Raj quickly whispered into Howard's ear.

"No," said Howard, "'neurotic' is too human to give him credit for. I'd say 'rabid' or even 'extraterrestrial'."

"No, no," Lily interjected, "no, Dr. Cooper has every reason to be upset."

"What!" They all said, except Sheldon who exclaimed "thank you!" with a curt "now get out."

"Please, just say you will reconsider my case."

"What case?" Leonard asked.

"This charlatan," said Sheldon who hurried over, pointing his finger, "wants me to hire her as my assistant!"

While Raj and Howard sat back going "ohh", Leonard waved his hand in Lily's defense. "Oh just give her a chance, Sheldon. It's obviously really important to her."

Sheldon stamped his foot, "But she doesn't even know the uncertainty principle equation!"

Raj and Howard gasped in her direction with wide mouths, but Leonard took Lily's defense again. "Sheldon, not ever scientist can recite the origin of the uncertainty principle with every detail to fundamental concepts, experiments, modified interpretations in advanced topics, or every contributing scientist to its modernization and popularity off the top their head."

Sheldon crossed his arms with daring, slanted eyes. "I only asked for the formula."

Leonard too gasped wide-mouthed at Lily who sat blushing at her shoes.

"Okay, okay! Maybe I don't know a lick of physics."

"Then why do you want to be his assistant?" Howard asked. "I mean of all things," he muttered under his breath, "and of all people."

"Well," she began, "there's this really prestigious workshop in Iowa-"

"Iowa?"

"What sort of workshop?" Howard asked.

"Creative writing."

Sheldon winced.

"More specifically?" Howard pried.

"Poetry."

Sheldon winced louder, as if in real pain. "Well that's about as useful as protected recreational sex."

"I don't know, in Raj's country poetry is as well regarded as science," Howard said.

"Yeah, Sheldon, literature is important," chimed Leonard.

Sheldon gave them his usual expression, the one with his jaw iron tight and eyes combative. "You'll have Roger Penrose turning over in his grave, talking like that."

"Penrose isn't dead!"

"Obviously you don't wish to keep him that way!"

"Who," Lily asked, ignoring Raj and Howard's warning gestures.

Sheldon, who looked on the verge of a heart attack, took a breath to recite, "In 1967-" and the guys all fell back in their seats in defeat. "You had to ask," Howard whined.

"Yeah," said Leonard, leaning in, "this is how he got his first doctorate."

"Ahem," Sheldon coughed. "In 1967, Mr. Penrose first proposed a theory, the twistor theory if you will, for the motion of massless fields of arbitrary spin-"

"Okay, okay," Lily cut in. "I shouldn't have asked! Now I don't want to waste anymore of your time, so could you please-"

"Why would I hire you!" Sheldon exploded. "You clearly have no experience or even education anywhere near the field."

Lily made nervous gestures with her thumbs and forefingers. "Um, because I already told the director of the board of admissions at the University of Iowa that I was currently your assistant." It all came out in one fast stream of words, and she sat, teeth clenched and toes crossed, clinging to hope.

"What!"

They all were turned towards her, expecting to hear the story, and Lily felt her face becoming warm again. She knew she might have to eventually tell Sheldon how and why she lied, but she wasn't expecting an audience. She fingered the hem of her shirt again, muttering, "It just all sort of happened so fast and, well, I panicked." Lily looked at all of them with an embarrassed expression before telling them, "I'm not proud of this."