Chapter 4

So, Sectionals and the stories around them passed, and the school year finished. The boys were, in many ways, not looking forward to a long summer working full time, but Simon in particular was looking forward to spending some time with Santana.

It was a sweltering Tuesday afternoon, a week into the summer vacation, when Will called Simon, his voice active with excitement. The two of them had the day off, while Jay and Neil were on the shop floor. Simon and Santana had been lounging around the house watching old movies.

"Hello?" said Simon, wiping sweat from his brow. Santana paused Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

"You at home at the moment, Si?" Will asked as an introduction.

"Yeah, just spending time with my lady. What's up, Wayne Pooney?"

"Funny. Look, Si, I think you should get to mine. Quick as possible, mate."

Within ten minutes, Simon and Santana were fully dressed and in the car. Something in Will's voice had spelled urgency. Simon drove fast, knowing that Will wouldn't show the slightest bit of excitement if he hadn't found something massive.

He invited them into the flat. It was only the second time Santana had ever been there. Will immediately directed them to his computer.

"You found Jay's online porn stash?" Simon guessed, excitedly. "I know he's into some rough stuff. It's sheep, isn't it! I knew it! Jay's into sheep!"

"Shush. I've found something far better. I was just browsing the internet. Just got bored because Jay's at work."

"Aww, do you love him? Love your fwiend? You poof!"

"Yeah, you poof!" said Santana, and Simon beamed with joy.

"Shut up. Helping you here." He opened Facebook and located a page of a smiling women in her mid fifties. She was holding a bible and was evidently in some sort of church.

"Her name's Mary Cooper," said Will. "At first, I was just following up loose sends based on what you told me, but everything ties in! Take a look!"

Shortly below her profile picture was the traditional 'In a Relationship with…' tab, complete with a small quote inside it.

"My darling husband George," Wil read out, "May he rest in peace."

"That's pretty sweet," said Simon, nodding. "Did you find anything about her son?"

"Ask and you will find, Si," said Will, scrawling down. He was able to check Mary Cooper's wall, and he scrolled down over a variety of posts talking about someone called Rick Perry and sharing church gossip to a post for around a month ago. Will quickly highlighted it with the cursor and began to read.

Been reading the news about those folks in Cern, in Europe, creatin' little black holes for science. Hope my Shelly and his little friends down in Cal Tech aren't working on anything like that!

"And it's got seventy five likes," said Will disdainfully. "I despair for the bible belt, honestly I do."

"Never mind that," said Simon excitedly, "Cal Tech! You've found him! You fucking beauty, you've found him!"

He put his hands on Will's shoulders and shook him violently in joy. The three celebrated a few moments of mutual ecstasy, Will's happiness only marred by the fact that he had found his results an hour ago and the excitement had worn off. Simon kissed Santana, and the two of them reminded him of that famous Eisenstaedt photo about VJ Day. The last time he'd seen Simon this happy about anything was when he got to tear his return airline ticket to London up (Will had persuaded him to try and sell it, but for Simon it was symbolic). Before he could continue thinking, he found himself being forcefully hugged by both Simon and Santana-she evidently cared greatly about her boyfriend's happiness; usually, Santana was deadpan and sardonic about everything, but she was positively overjoyed.

"Alright, you bumders, get off me," he said, grinning. "Besides, there's more."

"How could there be more? Surely we just call up Cal Tech and ask for Dr Cooper's details?"

"It's funny, you know," said Will, rolling his eyes, "here, they have their very own version of the Data Protection Act. And they don't break it!"

"You called them?"

"Wanted the surprise to be me handing you his address and phone number, but they shot me down. Explained he was your cousin, and the sarky bitch on reception said it didn't matter if he was your long lost twin!"

"So, we're sunk again?" asked Simon, suddenly panicked. "Why would you do that? I-"

"We're not sunk," said Will. "Because I thought of that too." He typed in another search. "Before, we were searching names only to give us more to search. But then I started searching groups as well! And when you put Sheldon Cooper and Cal Tech together…you get this. He gestured Simon to the computer.

Calling 'Doctor' Sheldon Cooper a dumbass is an insult to dumbasses everywhere

"Who the fuck wrote that?" Simon demanded, indignantly.

"That's the group title," said Will. "There are three group admins. You've got Leslie Winkle, Barry Kripke and Will Wheaton. But Will Wheaton was in Star Trek so it's probably some sort of weird fake-profile. Probably by a sci-fi fan. Whoever he is, he really seems to hate this Sheldon. Although I think Leslie Winkle made the group. She uses the word 'dumbass' the most."

"So, just because a few people hate him, I'm not meant to try to find him?"

"You're not getting me, Si. There's a contact number for the group."

Simon's heart lurched. "Shit! Really?" He followed Will's finger to a cell phone number for Leslie Winkle. He dialled the number, his fingers shaking as he did so.

"Hello?" said the female voice on the other end. Simon considered silence for a few seconds, but decided to speak up.

"Hi," he said, trying not to sound nervous. "I'm really sorry to bother you…"

"Are you a telemarketer? 'Cause, you should probably know, I've got liquid nitrogen slowly eating its way through a container."

"I'm not a telemarketer," said Simon quickly. "I wanted to talk to you about the group you created. On Facebook."

"Oh," said Leslie, and Simon sensed a suspicious air. "That you making a crank call with a phony British accent, Sheldon?"

"No," stuttered Simon. "God, no. I was actually hoping you had his number."

Leslie was silent for a few moments. "He criticise your research? Did you find a sarcastic part-by-part criticism of your entire thesis in your inbox, two days after you posted the thing?"

"Yes!" Simon lied. He could see why this woman hated his cousin. "Yeah, the bastard."

"You called all the way to America to give your detractor a piece of your mind? I'm impressed." Leslie chuckled slightly. "You're not the only one. Where are you based?"

"Royal Holloway," said Simon, thinking quickly. "London." It was the only thing he could think of. Suzie, the girl who had taken her 'A' Levels four years early, had always talked about going there. Next to him, Will snorted. Simon might have been more intelligent than Jay and Neil, but the only way he was going to get anywhere near Royal Holloway was if he was sweeping the floors.

"Yeah, I think it'd be worth it to have Sheldon get a taste of his own medicine," Leslie said. "I'd ask for you to put me on conference but I'll ask Leonard or Howard about it later." She reached around for Sheldon's house number. "You got a pen?"

It had been twenty minutes and Simon still hadn't plucked up to call Sheldon. He'd sat in silence for as long as Will had remembered. An atmosphere had fallen over the room.

"Baby, you know you don't have to do this," Santana said slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"But if you don't, stop pacing around," said Will. "You're pissing me off."

"I'm going to call him," said Simon, resolutely. "I'm going to call him."

"Do it, already!" Will slammed his fist on the PC desk, scowling. Simon picked up the number again, and dialled it into his phone. He was visibly sweating as he heard the ring.

"Hello?" said a voice on the other end of the phone. It was a male voice, slightly nasal. Simon tried to suppress any nervous stuttering when he spoke.

"Hi," he said quietly. "Is that Sheldon Cooper? Doctor Sheldon Cooper?"

"No," said the voice. Simon suddenly felt a pang of disappointment; had his cousin moved?

"This is his roommate, Leonard," said the voice, and Simon's stomach lurched. He was through to the right place!

"Hi," he said again. "This is Simon…Cooper from Lima. Ohio."

"Ohio?" said Leonard, and Simon thought he quivered for a moment. "Hey, if you're from the university, Sheldon didn't mean it when he called your research farcical, and he certainly didn't mean it when he called you a hack, I-"

"I'm not from the university," Simon replied. "I'm actually Sheldon's cousin."

There was a moment's silence. "You don't sound like you're from Texas."

"I'm from London, Simon replied, his heart in his throat. "I don' think Sheldon knows about me. I know, it sounds fucking mental, but-"

"Wow," said Leonard. "Just…wow. His mother told me all about this."

Simon raised his eyes. "He knows about me?"

"Actually, no." Leonard said, sounding as flustered and excited as Simon. "His mom decided it would be best to not to tell him. You see, he'd actually go…crazier and try to run tests on you. To see if his brilliance is some sort of freak genetic abnormality that only affects his generation, I guess."

"Sounds like he's pretty out there!"

"He has his moments," agreed Leonard. "But, hey! You said you were in Ohio, right?"

"Yeah. Moved out here a couple of months ago."

"I can't believe how lucky this is, but a few of us are flying to Iowa next week. Iowa City. It's a university tour and we'll be there for about a week. I wish we could take a round trip to Lima but time's tight. If you've got some time, why don't you take a drive up? The college is giving us a suite and a few of you would definitely be welcome to crash if you wanted to take a road trip! I…actually, I have no idea if Sheldon will be happy to see you. But, uh, why don't you give it a go?"

Leonard Hofstadter and Simon took down each other's cell phone numbers. Leonard couldn't quite believe that he was going to meet a long lost relative of Sheldon. He was going to leave the news a surprise to Sheldon; in the time he had known him, his friend had never reacted well to surprises, be they good or bad, but this was something else. Simon Cooper was only his cousin, but they way they were connecting now, it was almost as if they were long lost half brother. That was, judging by the sound of his voice, how Simon Cooper was taking it.

Mary Cooper had told him about the missing family connection when she had come over to mediate a feud between Sheldon and Penny. He and Leonard had a strange connection in regards to mothers; Dr Beverly Hofstadter represented the logical, ordered and scientific childhood Sheldon had always craved, whereas Mary Cooper's simplistic yet close household was the exact atmosphere in which Leonard wished he had been raised. As a result, Leonard got on very well with Mary, and Sheldon was close to Beverly.

He had been idly chatting with Mary in their apartment when she had mentioned finding the correspondence George and Alan Cooper had. Her husband had stored them in a box which had found its way into the garage. She'd cleared away most of her husband's things when he died, but it was months afterwards when she found the box. She'd toyed with the idea of emailing this Alan Cooper, Rudge Park, London but had decided against it. At best, the two of them would hit it off and make polite conversation, at worst Alan would remind her of his half brother and it would only depress her, being forced to remember George and her grief.

Sheldon, perhaps luckily, had been at the comic book store with Raj and Howard when the young English man had rung. Leonard had been going over some notes for the trip to Iowa they had next week. They were going for a series of lectures based on a theorem they had established linking research around particle physics to wormholes. Sheldon, regrettably for the others, had first come up with the hypothesis and he had brought in Leonard and Raj, whose astrophysics research was all about wormholes. Howard had been brought in as he helped design the equipment that measured their results and not, as Sheldon suggested, because 'lesser minds tend get offended when you don't make a show of including them'. Howard had nearly quit over that remark. They were going to display the base points of the theorem to a number of different student groups in the Iowa City campus and were being flown out by the U of I as treasured guests. Penny was coming as well, but she was taking advantage of the free flights. Iowa City was only a four hour drive away from Omaha, so Penny's dad was going to drive her home and she was going to spend some time with the family in Nebraska.

"Have you told Sheldon?" was the first question Penny asked when Leonard told her the story. Raj, Howard and Sheldon would not be back for a while and he had to tell someone.

"I'm going to leave it as a surprise," Leonard said, grinning. "I know, Sheldon hates surprises, but, hey! I think he'll like this one."

"Hope he does," Penny replied, pouring both of them a glass of wine. "I know you don't want him freaking out as you're about to give a speech. Could you imagine?"

"Oh, I could," said Leonard. "It'll be okay. He's due to meet us pretty early on. Sheldon won't be able to do any…damage if he doesn't like it."

Simon, Will and Santana checked Google Maps for the best way to Iowa City from Lima. The journey would take roughly twenty four hours by car. Of course, that was continuously, and didn't include diversions like sleep, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"And sightseeing," Santana said. "That route takes us through the south side of Chicago!"

"Us?" Will retorted, grinning sardonically. "So, I guess this little road trip is invites only?"

"Well, you don't mind, do you mate? It's only, I'm obviously bringing Santana…"

"He thinks I'll put out."

"I think she'll put out. And she won't go anywhere without her BFF, so that means Neil's coming. And, it's a small car, you know, mate?"

"Yeah, I know." Will shrugged. "Have fun, you crazy kids. I could call shotgun, but I won't."