A/N: Oh, my goodness, guys, thank you so much for your reviews. You're so sweet and I can't stop writing this, because I'm so inspired. I don't know if anyone is even vaguely interested, but I created a mix on 8tracks as a sort of companion to this fic; each song corresponds to a chapter - (just add /jordaaaan/the-relocation-discrepancy-1 to the 8tracks URL, as it won't allow me to link!). I went back and edited the first two chapters with their respective songs, but you can see the full thing there. I guess there are sort of spoilers, because it goes all the way to the end :P Listen at your own risk (which covers my dubious taste in music).
The sun is up, I'm so happy I could scream!
And there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be.
In the ensuing couple of weeks, Amy bumped into Sheldon at meetings that transpired at such a frequent and meticulously ordered nature that she had every reason to suspect that such occurrences were anything but an accident. She elected not to mention it for the simple matter that a conversation with Sheldon was very much like walking on eggshells, but it intrigued her to such a level that Amy found herself attempting to predict the pattern of his idiosyncrasies. Sheldon himself appeared to have had her pegged from the moment she had vaulted the fence to the rear of their homes.
Despite the rapidly developing exhibition of the boy's reverence for routine and order, Sheldon Cooper was remarkably hard to predict. The following morning, after navigating the treacherous waters that was the Fowler family breakfast (she ate her Bran Flakes in the icy wake of her father's return, silently filing the venomous glances between her parents for future reference), Amy had returned to the church. It was cooler then and the goose-bumps that were procured were only slightly revealed by the unshakeable sensation of being presided over by something far bigger than she. Amy sat with her arm pressed against the cold wood of the pew from the evening before and waited. She filled five pages of her sketchbook before acknowledging that she was being ridiculous. That night, she made it back in time for dinner.
But then, in an act of stellar timing that was not lost on her, Amy chanced upon him at the park - alone. She had commented on the coincidence, naturally, but Sheldon had been quick to rebuke her with reference to "the construction of Pascal's triangle in relation to the binomial coefficients". Amy settled upon "happy accident", though she knew that it was anything but. The precise whereabouts of Amy Farrah Fowler had, not ten minutes previously, been announced to the entire street as part of an ongoing experiment on the part of her parents, to discern precisely how many decibels one's argument would have to reach before the neighbours had anything to say about it. Amy might well have blamed herself for prompting the bickering, had a similar event not taken place that very morning concerning the refrigerator.
By the time their fourth meeting had wound to a close, culminating in the affable—albeit slightly awkward—farewell on the sidewalk before their neighbouring homes, Sheldon had taken it upon himself to inform Amy of a social convention that had eluded her before she met him (Amy consequently suspected that he had fired such a debacle off from the top of his head, but given her own lack of any significant knowledge in the area, she deemed it out of place to comment). Three successive days spent in one another's company (five, if they weren't chronological) constituted a friendship and friends—the intonation of his voice grew significantly more pronounced with the emphasis on that word with a small, rare smile of his—helped friends.
It took a further hour for Amy to realise that he was asking a favour from her.
They had hedged around the matter in a way that was somewhat admirable, considering Sheldon's apparently eidetic memory (it hadn't been explicitly mentioned, but Amy had every reason to believe it was the case; Sheldon had recited the precise order of her sketches—having removed the tiny impersonation of him the very same night that she had first dedicated it to paper—with such aplomb that it couldn't be anything but) and Amy's chronic inability to let things go. When he finally revealed the nature of this particular favour, she realised in sonic clarity why it had pained him so much to do so.
"You're joking."
"Amy, we've established this. I don't joke. I find it to be a complete waste of time and effort, because most people aren't funny, anyway, and—"
"Alright, I get it. But why?"
Sheldon was reproachful, as though he couldn't realistically comprehend why anyone would ask such a thing. "Because Meemaw asked me to."
Had she been any better versed in her friend's habits by that point, Amy might well have been inclined to retort something along the lines of "you'd jump off Brooklyn Bridge if your grandmother asked you to", but, as it happened, the statement was so vague and consequently so fascinating that she, perhaps inadvisably, just had to ask.
"Meemaw?" Amy repeated. Behind her glasses, her brows knitted together quizzically.
"Yes, my grandmother. My Meemaw." Sheldon's face broke into such a bright smile that she felt a little inadequate looking at it. The woman's grandson was evidently besotted. "She's not like the rest of my family. She bought me my first microscope. It's the least I can do to help her out every once in a while."
She regarded him sceptically. "But painting her shed?"
At any rate, that, Amy would come to reflect, was the precise catalyst for the events that truly defined that single summer in Texas. There was something absurdly companionable about the simple act of simultaneously being plucked from their comfort zones; a gentle push closer together by a shared disdain for any and all physical exertion. The sun was blisteringly hot and the stench of paint prompted Amy's eyes to water if she loaded her brush too heavily, but the hours would pass easily, blurred into one another by the rapid relay of equations and theories and essays that Sheldon seemed to take pleasure in firing off and receiving back from Amy. She was conscious that any ensuing thoughts veered atrociously close to cheesiness to be considered as a valid point, but it was an irrefutable feeling: Sheldon accepted her without question.
He didn't pressure her to remove her cardigan, for one thing, though Amy thought it to be imperative to note that Sheldon himself had something of a penchant for layering. His long-sleeved shirt was wrinkled at the elbows, betraying its age, and, before he had reluctantly tugged it up in a half-arsed attempt to forgo any more unnecessary sweat, the sleeves hadn't quite met his wrists. It was yet another quirk to add to an already rich tapestry, as it were. Amy was mildly exasperated with herself for displaying such an avid interest in her neighbour, who likely would not remain so for long, but then Sheldon would comment on the most efficient equation to calculate precisely how much paint he would need to finish the back wall and she would be enamoured once more.
He remained blissfully oblivious to the stern words that Amy had spent much of that morning inflicting upon herself—between proffering her opinion of Lewis, Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus and their Nobel Prize-winning work in embryonic development—and for that she could at least be thankful. Fortunately, the arrival of the much revered Meemaw herself diverted a potential mishap.
Sheldon's grandmother was diminutive in stature, that itself a surprise given how lanky her grandchildren were, but what she lacked in height, she evidently made up for ten times over in personality. By the time Amy had been appropriately plied with lemonade and baked goods (she only got a glance in a the latter after Sheldon had effectively demolished half the plate), her stomach ached with unexpected laughter. It was obvious why Sheldon thought so highly of her and Amy was inclined to believe that it was a unanimous feeling for those who met her, if Amy's own prompt admiration was anything to go by.
They sat in her porch, quite literally watching paint dry, with sun-burnt and paint-stained legs sprawled out in the shade. Sheldon regaled his grandmother with tales of college, from which he had recently graduated from (summa cum laude, he stated proudly), and Amy remained silent, allowing the dulcet tones of his Texan drawl to lull her into something of a daze. She felt as though she could have fallen asleep there and then, in the wake of both Sheldon's familiar theories and his beloved Meemaw's kindness. The latter reeled her back into the conversation once it became apparent that Sheldon was talking his way around in circles.
"And what about you, darlin'?" It took Amy a moment to realise that it was she who was being addressed. "Shelly here can shoot the breeze 'til the cows come home. He mentioned you're a biology gal."
Amy slid him a sideways glance beneath her eyelashes. The perfectly tied laces of his shoes suddenly seemed to Sheldon to be the most fascinating thing in the world. She noted the pink tinge of his cheeks with a smile.
"Yes, ma'am. Yucky, squishy things," Amy added, hoping the direct quote from "Shelly" would incite at least some reaction from him. It did: briefly, he scrunched his nose at her, before gathering the plates and cups in order to make a quick getaway. Amy continued: "Physics is fascinating, but quantum mechanics just don't get my motor running."
Oh, she did not just say that.
There was a musical peal to her right and, for the briefest of moments, Amy was convinced that, against all odds (i.e. the lack of any discernible breeze), a wind-chime was tinkling cheerfully in order to diffuse what ought to have been the awkward wake of her perhaps ill-advised comment. It wasn't until it finished with a breathy "ohhh, dear" that she realised Sheldon's grandmother was laughing.
"Oh my, you are a funny one. I can see why my Shelly likes you."
It was Amy's turn to blush. "Oh, I don't know about that. I haven't known him very long. I only just moved in next door - two weeks ago."
The older woman allowed a gnarled, warm hand to encompass Amy's knee in a gentle pat, before she clambered to her feet with a groan. She refused any help from Amy, but the girl suspected that the consequent creak was not entirely due to the wood of the porch.
"If it pleases you to think it, sweetie. Sheldon's a quirky little character, but he's a good one. Don't you cast him off just yet." Amy opened her mouth to remark that she had no intentions of doing anything of the sort, but that sweet, caring Meemaw had already yawped with such a formidable volume that she was startled into timidity, her voice carried across the humid air as she retreated back inside. "Shelly! Don't you let me see you doin' them dishes."
Amy trailed uncertainly into the house when it became apparent that neither of the Coopers were returning. As it happened, Sheldon had indeed been doing the dishes. She eventually followed the sounds of his garbled protests—the first time she had ever witnessed him relatively speechless—to the kitchen. From her vantage point in the doorway, Amy caught a glimpse of two soapy hands clenched together behind his back.
"Meemaw," he was pleading, looking very much like a child in spite of the fact he towered over the both of them. "Just once. You let me paint."
His grandmother had already commandeered control of the sink. She batted Sheldon's hand away when he attempted to delve in to help.
"Sheldon, you have a guest. Don't you think you oughta be entertainin' her?" Sheldon seemed poised to protest and Amy wasn't offended so much as bemused, but his Meemaw brandished a soapy finger in his face. "Don't start belly-achin'. If you want to help so bad, set the table for me. You stayin' for dinner, darlin'?"
The inquiry brought to mind a thousand idyllic images of doilies and crackling fires - everything archetypal about grandparents that Amy herself had only very dim memories of. It was irrational: in her brief tour of the house, she had seen none of such things, except for, perhaps, the numerous photographs of Sheldon's immediate family clustered on the mantelpiece. Regardless, it communicated such a warmth and sense of charity that she suddenly felt inadequate standing there in the kitchen of someone else's grandmother. Amy pursed her lips.
"I'm sorry, I promised my Mom I'd be home. She's expecting me. In fact, I should probably get going if I'm going to make it back in time. It was lovely to meet you." She proffered a smile and yet continued to feel distinctly awkward. It startled her how easily the lie slipped from her lips.
"Another time, then. Moonpie, are you gonna make this young lady walk home by herself through those woods? Well, I thought I'd raised my little gentleman better than that."
Ordinarily, Amy might have been inclined to remark that if she were independent enough to attend her own parent-teacher conference alone, then she could most certainly walk through a few trees in broad daylight, but Sheldon's cheeks were accosted with such a red sheen and the smile on his Meemaw's face was so poised to make the transition into smirk that Amy complied with a sappy expression of her own and conceded.
"I'd hate to get lost, Shelly."
He fired her a withering look that was pure Sheldon.
It was evident that Sheldon had attached some kind of scriptural significant to anything that came out of his grandmother's mouth, because, for the entire first half of their return journey through the woods, he seemed to be channelling her voice in some kind of pseudo-parrot affliction. The transformation was startling; it wasn't until Amy found an opening in his endless reams of chatter and dived for it, substituting Meemaw for melanin, that Sheldon reverted back from a frankly disturbing foray into immaturity.
The trek through the woods was not the only way to reach his grandmother's house, Sheldon had somehow segued into informing her, but it was the quickest—"as the crow flies", he remarked perkily.
"When I was growing up and my mother insisted that I ought to be more independent, I would always go the long way, because of wolves. Little Red Riding Hood really leaves a mark on a fella." He was kicking up leaves now as he walked and Amy couldn't quite bring herself to mention that wolves did not typically inhabit the area. "Eventually I decided that I wouldn't be inconvenienced by it any longer. As long as I don't wear red, I feel safe in the knowledge that I won't become another story book cliché."
Amy peered down at her red Chucks. "Thank you for warning me."
"You're quite welcome." She glanced incredulously at him. "Oh, I see. Sarcasm. Well, I'll admit, your choice of footwear is unfortunate. You almost certainly would be the first on their radar. They're kind of like bulls, I suspect."
The premise was decidedly absurd and Amy wasn't entirely certain whether or not Sheldon was teasing her, but given his complete lack of intuition regarding anything of the sort, she realised in an almost painful revelation, reinforced by the solemn expression he slid to her (dead girl walking), that it was a notion Sheldon considered to be a pressing one.
"How silly of me. In future, I'll be sure to wear my black ones."
He nodded. "A commendable choice. I must implore you exercise further caution, however. I would hate to break the news of your disappearance to your mother. Quite frankly, she's a little intimidating."
"You mean you aren't going to rescue me?"
"As I'm neither a knight in shining armour or, more aptly, a woodcutter, I would imagine not."
It would have been a complete and utter lie had Amy claimed to not be disappointed by the statement. "I see. Well, that is unfortunate. I do rather like living."
"Lately, Amy Farrah Fowler, as do I."
The sun was filtering through the thick green canopy above, drenching them in a dappled green light that seemed to warm Amy right to her core. The pair meandered past fallen logs and trunks that rose high above their heads, impossibly far and impossibly thick; occasionally, their hands would brush and Amy realised that she was actively searching for such moments. She wanted him to reach out with those long fingers and entwine them with hers; it was more the gesture that hinted he would never let go rather than a girlish little crush. (Maybe that was stewing away just a little bit beneath the surface.)
It wasn't until much later, lying irreconcilably awake well into the night and replaying every little moment of the afternoon, that the gravity of Sheldon's statement struck her.
Amy returned to a battleground. In lieu of the physical effects—black blood that swelled knee-deep; the haunting screams; the low rattle of gun-fire that Amy's ears would hum with even after she put down her books—it wasn't immediately obvious and, initially, she hovered in the doorway as though to be patient was to avoid what she felt to be an inevitable reeling into the throes of her parent's bickering.
"I can't do this anymore, Richard."
The statement dropped like a lead weight through Amy's stomach. It seemed to tether her in place, hand still curled around the door knob from her attempt to close it as quietly as possible behind her. Like most children, even teenagers, the thought of her parents divorcing was a foreign one. She was well-versed enough with the event plaguing her peers' lives to suspect that its effects were collateral and, as much as she disliked her father the majority of the time, Amy desired with all her heart not to be yet another statistic.
"How many times have we gone through this now?
"I mean it this time. Not anymore, not with this huge deal hanging over our heads."
"Then don't make a huge deal of it."
"And how do you expect me to do that? How can I sit next to you at dinner; how can you sit there at Amy's school and pretend like you're a parent – a real one?"
"You always over-analyse everything, Bev. What do you expect me to do?"
"I want you to promise that this won't ever happen again. I want you to end it."
"Fine, I promise."
"You're such a liar."
"Now who's being ridiculous?"
The rapid rally back and forth between her parents rang between Amy's ears as she attempted to manoeuvre through the hall and she screwed her eyes shut tight, as though to do so was not entirely counter-productive. Each step she took seemed to echo beneath her feet, each floorboard groaning beneath a weight that was not in any way different to the countless times she had tread along a similar pathway prior to this ill-fated debacle. It seemed to bounce around her, but Amy continued unnoticed, judging by the continual verbal battering that each party took.
But then her foot snagged on the amalgamation of shoes that lay in a clustered mountain at the bottom of the staircase and she went flying, slamming roughly against the bottom step and skinning her knee. Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes, steaming up her glasses, but it was only partly out of pain.
"Amy?"
She was already halfway up the stairs, cheeks ablaze with embarrassment and anger, and didn't answer. She piled her books in front of her bedroom door to prevent an intrustion, but it was a redundant gesture; her parents were silent.
Here with you it's perfect, it's all I ever wanted,
I almost can't believe that it's for real (so pinch me quick!)
- The Cure; Mint Car
