Chapter 2
A/N- Thank you for the feedback! It means a lot and it helps me gauge interest in the story. I have no idea how long it will be so I am just as surprised as you as to what happens. A note on the medical emergency. It may sound a little exaggerated but weirdly enough that did happen to me when I was 14 years old. My sister bumped into me and I dropped a glass of water, giving me a cut as long as the one mentioned and yes I did pass out too. I still have a scar today of where the stitches were. Anyway enough with this story and back to why you are reading this. Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own TBBT or its characters.
All Sheldon could see was blackness. He felt as though he was swimming in a sea of nothingness. Am I dead? What if I am? I'll never get a Nobel Prize, never sit in my spot, never see Amy again.
Amy. The last thing he could remember was carrying his brunette beauty into a crowded hospital, passed out and covered in blood.
Just when he thought he was never going to see her again, Sheldon began to hear the familiar voices of his homunculus best friend and roommate, along with the concerned voice of his Nebraskan neighbor. He recognized phrases like "Can you hear me?" from Leonard and "Sweetie, sweetie wake up!" from Penny.
Sheldon began to slowly descend out of the pitch-black darkness. He felt like he was coming back to life in a sense, seeing a light drawing closer and closer, until he finally woke up from his stupor.
"Sheldon! Sheldon are you okay? It's me Penny! Sweetie can you hear me?" asked a frantic Penny. She had gotten a call from Leonard saying that Sheldon and Amy were at the hospital and hightailed it over there in record time. She was fearful for both Sheldon and Amy, they were her best friends after all.
It took him a couple of minutes but Sheldon finally was able to speak for the first time in what seemed like ages.
"Leonard? What happened? Where's Amy?
"Buddy, you fainted about 15 minutes ago. Amy is fine and stitched up in ICU. They are going to keep her here for the night to make sure that she has enough energy to drive home tomorrow."
Sheldon felt sudden relief knowing that Amy wasn't seriously injured. After asking Leonard a few more general questions about her condition, Sheldon took inventory of his surroundings.
The first thing he noticed was that everything was white, a definite contrast to the immense darkness he was experiencing before.
The bed, the sheets, the curtains, everything. Everything was this bright white that hurt the eyes if stared at long enough. Besides an uncomfortable looking chair next to the bed and some art hokum decorating the walls, Sheldon thought the room looked barren.
This place needs some comic posters or something.
"Do you think I can go see Amy now?"
Before Penny had the chance to give him an answer, a doctor strode into the room to check his condition.
"Mr. Cooper, I believe that Miss Fowler can take visitors right now. She is in room—
"It's Dr. Cooper and her name is Doctor Amy Farrah Fowler not miss," Sheldon practically spat back at the doctor.
"So sorry, Dr. Cooper. As I was saying Dr. Fowler can have visitors now, just go up to room 271 and she should be awake."
"Thank you doctor. Leonard, Penny I think I would like to go see Amy alone first."
"Ok sweetie, just come get us so I can see if my bestie's okay!"
Sheldon slowly inched up out of the bed, steadying himself as he stood up and warily made his way up to Amy's room on the second floor.
Even before he could step on the elevator, however, he was assaulted with questions from a quickly approaching Bernadette, Raj, and Howard, who had all driven to the hospital after Penny informed them of Amy's injury.
"Sheldon are you alright?"
"How's Amy?"
"Do you know where Amy is?"
The trio kept asking him a myriad of questions that frankly, he had no desire to answer at the moment.
"All information regarding Amy can be answered by Leonard or Penny, right over there. And yes I am fine, thank you for asking Bernadette. If you will excuse me, I want to go see my girlfriend, so please stop asking me repetitive questions."
With that, Sheldon squeezed his way past his friends and into an incoming elevator. Given a few moments peace, he began to think of what he would ask Amy and how he would respond to her questions that would sure be asked. He was concerned that she would be interested in knowing why he had helped her, forcing him to talk about that giant monkey on his back that was his feelings.
Sheldon had always told himself that he was purely a man of science, a Homo Novus if you will. Those baser urges that everyone else seemed to be plagued with had never been a part of his life, except maybe for one stress relief session in his experimental stage in college. He had sworn he would never let feelings stand in the way, using Leonard and Penny's tumultuous relationship as a constant reminder.
Insert Amy Farrah Fowler. Never would he know how much that coffee shop date would slowly start to break down the walls that were protecting him from any emotional attachment whatsoever. He hated to admit defeat in any endeavor, so it was a monumental step for him to say that he didn't have too much knowledge on the topic of feelings.
Pulling Sheldon out of his reverie was the soft ding coming from the elevator, telling him that he was on his designated floor. Sheldon began to feel nervous, complete with sweaty palms and a noticeably increased heart rate as he drew closer to Amy's room.
What is happening to me? All I'm doing is checking on my girlfriend. Why do I feel like I'm about to throw up? I'll have to go back to get a check up soon.
Sheldon approached Amy's door apprehensively before beginning his knocking routine.
*knock,knock,knock* Amy!
*knock,knock,knock* Amy!
*knock,knock,knock* Amy!
"Come in Sheldon!" Amy shouted from inside her room. She had secretly been hoping that he would come visit her soon, but as soon as she saw his paler-than-usual complexion and slightly disheveled hair, Amy knew something was wrong.
She knew that Sheldon would never appear like such a mess out in public and from what she remembered he had been white knuckling the steering wheel all the way to the hospital.
"Sheldon, what happened? In all the years we've been friends, I have always known you to be one of the cleanest and well-kept people in my life. Now your hairy is messy and you look as a pale as a ghost."
Wow I can't believe she noticed all those things. Must be a girl thing.
"Well after the nurses took you away to the ICU for stitches, I passed out in the waiting room for 15 minutes, then Leonard and Penny woke me up."
Amy was flabbergasted at Sheldon's nonchalance about fainting in the middle of a hospital. For as long as she's been his friend and then girlfriend, she has always seen a man afraid of any and all germs and touch. Now here he was talking about fainting on a dirty floor with the ease she has only seen when he tells her about his favorite comics or the latest developments in string theory over their tea dates.
"…. After Bernadette finished asking me questions, I showed up here."
When Amy realized that Sheldon had completely recanted his story to her, she began pondering over the many questions he wanted him to answer. However, before she uttered another word, a nurse came in to give her more morphine to ease the searing pain she was receiving from the 13 stitches in her left forearm.
"How are you feeling Dr. Fowler?"
"I feel okay except for some irritation from the stitches, but I guess that is to be expected from a 7 inch cut on my arm."
"That's good. We are just going to keep you overnight to make sure your vitals stay healthy."
Amy was relieved that she would only have to stay for one night here. She couldn't even imagine the work she would have been missing if she had been seriously injured. Not only would it have been financially detrimental, but she was just starting a new study, looking at the various reactions of Capuchin monkeys to various visual stimuli.
With a swift thank you from Amy, the nurse left the room, leaving both Sheldon and Amy to their thoughts.
Amy was beginning to wonder if her boyfriend was going to say more, using his deafening silence as evidence against it. She knew he must have been extremely uncomfortable, but she figured he would want to continue a conversation.
It seemed like ages before Sheldon finally broke his silence. "Amy, would you like to play a game? I don't have the Counterfactual cards with me, but we could make some new ones up that I could write down later."
"I would love to play a game with you Sheldon. Would you like to go first?"
"Yes. Dr. Fowler are you ready for a zinger?"
From then on Sheldon and Amy assimilated right into their normal going on's. For hours, the Shamy enjoyed nothing other than postulating other universes and testing each other's wit.
The topics of discussion then moved towards each other's work, with Sheldon telling Amy of the hardships of working with Kripke and some new developments in his dark matter theories. Ever since his "wonder blunder" kerfuffle a few months back, Sheldon had been working extra hard to improve his credibility.
Amy began telling him about her new study with the monkeys and she decided that now was the best time to tell him her exciting news.
"Along with working on a new behavioral study, Dr. Gaublehauser approached me a few days ago and asked if I would like a permanent position at Caltech. I told him I would think about it since I wanted to discuss it with you first. So what do you think Sheldon?"
Internally he was overjoyed that Amy was going to be working in close proximity to him for the foreseeable future. He would be able to eat lunch with her everyday and solve riveting brainteasers over heated discussion. She was the only person, after all, that was able to challenge him intellectually and he did not have to try to enjoy himself when he was with her.
Maybe if she's always here, physical contact will become easier? Hmm I may have to do some further research.
"Amy that's wonderful! I'm really happy you're going to be working here."
"Really?" Wow I expected him to freak out a lot. Maybe he is changing. The Sheldon Amy knew would have told her all the wrong aspects of them working together and would have never been this spontaneous.
In the midst of all the excitement, time flew by and Sheldon realized that he would have to leave soon. Wow I guess time does fly when you're having fun. He suddenly felt a buzz in the pocket of his pants and assumed that Leonard and Penny were looking for him so they could leave.
"Amy I regret to inform you but Leonard is looking for me so they can leave. I would stay a little longer but I forgot my bus pants."
Sheldon moved closer to Amy, even sitting on the bed near the very edge.
What is he doing?
Amy was completely in shock as Sheldon inched closer to her and slowly grasped her right hand, trying to avoid bringing her pain in her left hand. He began to circle his thumbs over her knuckles and caressed her hand as if Amy's hand was one of his precious comic books.
Sheldon had no idea what he was doing but all he knew was that holding and stroking Amy's hand felt natural. He may not have been ready for coitus but taking these small steps was becoming easier.
For a couple minutes longer, both Sheldon and Amy just stared into each other's eyes, as what Penny nicknamed "eye-coitus".
"I'm really glad you're okay. You had me scared for a moment there," Sheldon uttered with such compassion that Amy thought her heart was going to burst into tiny pieces.
She was stunned into silence and managed to whisper a quiet thank you to Sheldon as he walked out of the hospital room door.
I can't believe he touched me on his own. What does this mean? Does he want to move forward?
Amy asked herself all these questions as she quietly drifted off to sleep. I'll just ask him tomorrow.
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As Sheldon made his way back to his friends, he was consumed by thoughts on what had just occurred.
What does this mean? Where do we go from here?
He mindlessly made his way over to Leonard and Penny and was instantly bombarded with questions, with his other friends nowhere in sight.
"How's Amy feeling?"
"Do you think I could go see her real quick?"
"Leonard, Amy is feeling fine and no Penny she looked like she was falling asleep as soon as I left."
Penny looked slightly upset but a devilish grin quickly spread across her face. "Why were you in there so long? Were you guys doing something dirty," she said as she wagged her eyebrows.
Sheldon began to feel hot under the collar so he briskly strode out of the waiting room in the direction of Leonard's car, not hearing the desperate call of Penny coming from behind.
"Sheldon wait! I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." By now she had caught up to him and was nearly out of breath when she reached him.
"I'm sorry sweetie. I was just curious as to why you were in Amy's room for a good couple hours."
With his usual tone of condescension, Sheldon told Penny that they were just playing a rousing game of Counterfactuals and discussed each other's work. He figured that Amy would tell her the other news about her moving to Caltech at their next girls night. They're clucking hens for crying out loud! They tell each other everything.
Since Leonard and Penny were driving separately, Sheldon chose to ride with Leonard to avoid any more personal questions from Miss Nebraskan Man-Hands.
Once he was in Leonard's car, he started to ponder over the events of the past 3 hours. He had helped and rescued his girlfriend from serious injury, fainted in the middle of a waiting room (Wow I'm going to need to disinfect myself at least five times tonight. Just think of all of those germs on that grimy floor. The germs!), and held Amy's hand and expressed some of his innermost feelings.
Times like these were when Sheldon was the most confused. The emotional side of himself that he never knew he had was overjoyed at the thought of him holding and stroking his girlfriend's. He had almost kissed her but chickened out at the last minute, his Vulcan side taking over yet again.
Recently that Vulcan side that Sheldon had been nurturing for years has been in a constant struggle with this newfound "hippie-dippie" side of himself. Even the Vulcan practice of Kolinahr was failing him, something that had never happened since he began the practice when he was a child.
These new feelings he was having for Amy were taking over his mind and he wondered if he should just succumb to his baser urges and make them go away. It wasn't that he found Amy repulsive, he thought she was beautiful under her many layers and cardigans, after all Sheldon loved women who dressed conservatively.
It was his logical side of his brain that was preventing him from being the boyfriend he knew Amy deserved. He hated himself for it, but didn't know how to fix it. Luckily, he had been taking baby steps in the right direction, so that gave him hope that one day he would be worthy of a great gal like Amy.
Sheldon was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear Leonard calling out his name until he gently tapped on his shoulder.
"Sheldon we're home."
As the duo trudged their way up the four flights of stairs,Sheldon decided that a good night's REM cycle would help him clear his head after all the unnecessary excitement tonight.
He resolved to tell Amy about his recent quandaries when she was feeling better. All Sheldon knew for sure was that she was the only one who could help in solving the mystery that was his feelings.
A/N Wow that was a long one! I just started writing and couldn't stop. Remember to read and review! It helps me a lot and it boosts my spirits! Next chapter coming soon.
-Katie