The incessant ringing of the telephone distracted Sheldon from scribbling equations on the whiteboard behind him, and he glanced around the empty classroom looking for the source of the noise. It finally occurred to him to check his new cellphone that he'd slipped into his briefcase when he'd left the hotel that morning.

"Hello, Doctor Sheldon Cooper speaking; state your business."

"Moonpie, is that anyway to speak to your grandma?"

"Meemaw!" A bright smile immediately crossed over Sheldon's face as he heard the familiar tones of his beloved Meemaw coming through the tiny speaker. "I received your care package that you had sent to the hotel; boy, those cookies were good!"

"Glad to hear you enjoyed them, Moonpie. How are you enjoying your lecture tour?"

"Oh, it's ghastly! I'm only glad that Harvard is the last one on the list and then I can return home to Pasadena. Who would have thought that one little paper that I wrote as part of my thesis would have meant that I had to travel halfway around the country giving talks on the darned thing…I knew I should have read the small print before I signed that contract!" Sheldon sighed heavily as he sat down in the leather chair behind the lectern and started rearranging his presentation notes unnecessarily.

"What contract is that, Moonpie?"

"Oh, CalTech have offered me the position of Senior Theorectical Particle Physicist; as soon as they received word that parts of my thesis had been published they offered me a job before I'd even finished the rest of my doctorate. I start work as soon as I get back." Sheldon sighed again as his notes were completely out of order now, and he would have to start again from scratch.

"You don't sound too happy about the prospect of working there, Shelly. You've been there working on your doctorate for a while, ever think about moving on?" Meemaw heard the sighs and could almost see her Grandson's worried expression as if he were sitting right in front of her.

"No, I like California…it's neither too hot nor too cold, I've grown used to my apartment now; although my roommate has given me notice that he intends to move out…do you know how hard it was to find a suitable person to live with in the first place?"

"Why don't you put up flyers in the university then? If you're looking for someone with similar interests that won't mind putting up with your whiteboards that sounds like the only sensible solution." Meemaw suggested softly, and Sheldon pursed his lips as he thought about the suggestion.

"Hmm…you might be onto something there, Meemaw. He isn't moving out until the end of the school year; so that gives me until then to advertise and interview suitable applicants. I have to go soon, as my lecture will be starting shortly."

"That's why I was calling, Iris told me that Amy was going to try and pop in to see you at some time today."

"Amy?" Sheldon repeated, utterly at a loss as to why his Meemaw would be giving out his location to random women. He recognised Iris as being the name of Meemaw's goddaughter, but the name 'Amy' completely escaped him.

"Iris's daughter; she's studying science at Harvard…this is her last year and then she will be a Doctor just like you, Moonpie."

"Ah yes, the girl that moved to Norway when she found out I had been invited to Thanksgiving dinner." Sheldon mused and Meemaw chuckled heartily down the phone at him.

"She didn't move to Norway because of you, she was over there until Christmas and then she went back in January to finish off some research. Amy finished college in '98 and then went straight onto Harvard from there. I hear she's been offered a job at UCLA come the new year; ain't that up the road aways from where you are?"

"Meemaw, the distance between UCLA and CalTech varies between 23.1 and 28.6 miles depending on the route taken; so yes, by your definition I guess you could class that as being up the road 'aways'. She must be good if UCLA have offered her a contract before her studies have been completed."

"Like someone else I know." Meemaw chuckled again and Sheldon gave a little chuckle of his own, which was no more than a hitched breath, but for him that was almost like a belly laugh. "Good to hear you laughing again, Moonpie. I'm gonna let you go 'enlighten some young minds', ain't that what you said to me last week?"

"Yes, Meemaw; exactly that. Take care of yourself, and I love you." Sheldon whispered into the phone, noticing the students slowly entering the lecture hall; Meemaw said her goodbyes and Sheldon disconnected the call, before placing the phone back into his briefcase. He waited until the students had all filed in and taken their seats before walking over to stand behind the lectern.

"Good afternoon everyone, my name is Doctor Sheldon Cooper. I would like to introduce you to the fascinating world of string theory. What is string theory you might ask? Well, to answer that question we have to look a little further back into the past…" Sheldon flicked a switch and the lights dimmed in the hall and the large projector screen lit up with a scene of a starry night sky. He took a deep breath and straightened his plaid suit jacket as he settled into his lecture. "The word physics comes from the ancient Greek word 'physika'. Physika means the science of natural things, and it is there in Ancient Greece that our story begins…"

Over in the neurochemistry lab on the other side of the campus, Amy rose up from her stool and cracked her spine back into place as she moved out of the hunched over position that she had been sitting in for most of the morning. She glanced over at the clock on the wall and swore under her breath.

"My mother is going to kill me…"

"What was that Amy?" Janice, a fellow lab rat asked as she crossed over the room to store her notes away in the filing cabinet in the corner.

"I promised my mother that I would head over to sit in on a lecture this afternoon. Her godmother's grandson is on a lecture tour presenting part of his doctoral thesis and she wanted me to meet him. I kept trying to tell her that we've managed to successfully avoid running into each other for the better part of nineteen years now, but she still insisted…and you know how difficult it is for me to say 'no' to my mother."

"Yeah, that's why you're still gonna be living at home with her when you start at UCLA." Janice said with a grin, and Amy looked down at her fingers that were twisting themselves together in her lap.

"It's not that I don't want to get a place of my own, because I do. I would be able to afford a one bedroom place with the substantial salary that UCLA are offering, but I don't want to upset her…it was hard enough for her when I moved all the way out here to study rather remaining closer to home."

"Don't worry about it so much, finish up your work here; move in with your Mother for a while and then start looking for a place once you're settled. You don't have to make all of the decisions as soon as you get home; leave it for a while and then decide." Janice nudged Amy's shoulder lightly, although the two of them weren't close friends, they lived only a few rooms apart on campus and often shared small details of their home lives with each other whenever they were alone in the lab.

"Thank you, Janice. I'd better walk over and see if I can't catch the last few minutes of Sheldon's lecture…at least then I won't have to lie when I speak with Aunt Mary again. I can tell her honestly that I heard her son's lecture on particle physics; especially if I manage to catch anything worth remembering!"

"Make sure you take note of what he's wearing, I've seen some of those science geeks and let me tell you, they sure dress up weirdly sometimes! That may score you more points with his Mother, especially if it's something she bought for him."
"Noted." Amy nodded as she waved goodbye and started walking quickly across campus. She noticed a lot of mutterings from the students around her, but didn't pay attention to which hall they had poured out of en masse. She checked the room numbers against the notation she'd made from her Mother's e-mail and slowly opened the door to reveal…a completely empty lecture hall.

"If you've come to hear Doctor Cooper's lecture on particle physics, you're too late. It finished about ten minutes ago when he noticed that the students were all falling asleep in their chairs. I think he just let them sleep and walked away; I got here just in time to see the last of the slideshow finishing up and people waking up." A short skinny looking guy with a Beatles style haircut walked over to where Amy was standing in the doorway and offered his hand with a slight bow. "Enchante, mademoiselle."

"Umm, hello." Amy said hesitantly and reluctantly shook his hand. "What am I going to tell my Mother? I promised her that I would come over to watch Sheldon and I missed him yet again! I don't suppose you happened to catch what he was wearing did you? I need something to tell her, so that she will at least think that I tried."

"Hmm, by all accounts a rather garish blue plaid suit." The young man gave a little shiver, and Amy looked over at his own choice of clothing; skin tight jeans, a bright yellow v-neck sweater with a pale green turtleneck; she wisely refrained from commenting and just gave a small smile of thanks, before turning to leave the lecture hall.

"Hey!" The man called out as she stepped through the doorway, Amy paused and turned to look back. "A group of us came over from MIT to hear the lecture, if you want I can see whether any of them managed to stay awake for it?"

"Thank you for the offer, but it is not necessary. I will simply describe how the lecture was wonderful and what Sheldon wore; Aunt Mary will be satisfied with that I am sure…My Mother may be more difficult to persuade, but I am sure I will manage. Thank you again, and goodbye." Amy gave a small wave and the young man watched her walk away, admiring the way that her corduroy skirt moulded itself around her buttocks, his gaze slipped down her legs encased in thick purple tights and down to her sensible walking shoes. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he flipped it open to greet the caller.

"Hi, Ma…nah, just over at Harvard with some of the guys…Hey, guess what? I've just met my future wife...her name? Oh, shoot – I completely forgot to ask!" He stared down the now empty corridor and realised that he'd just let her slip straight through his hands. "Never mind, false alarm…no, I don't want you sending over any more 'care packages'…Ma, the brisket leaked everywhere and I couldn't get the smell out of the carpet for days! Listen I have to go, the guys are ready to leave now…yeah, love you too, bye!" He looked down the corridor again and sighed heavily before running his hands through his hair and walking slowly away. "I wonder if it was the hair…Maybe I should try a perm?"