Usual disclaimers; Rock on, Chuck and Bill, you rich geniuses.

Unwelcome at Science Week

Raj and Howard felt badly for how they had acted toward Sheldon the previous week. Or rather Bernadette had shamed them until they were able to fake the level of remorse she deemed appropriate. Also, they knew shutting himself off from the world could a signal that Sheldon might be straying into whack-a-doo territory. Although they'd tried to assure Bernadette (and themselves) that Amy could more than handle whatever weirder that weird breakdown her boyfriend hit her with, that only pissed the tiny microbiologist off further, "Sure." She'd quietly raged, "Leave the woman to clean up your mess."

So in fear they had gathered together a peace offering of Thai food, a selection of new comic books and a type of white wine that Raj had once noticed Amy having 2 glasses of, indicating to him that it must be her favorite.

"Hey!" Howard called, "Why is the door locked." Raj was mute until they could crack the wine bottle.

Inside Amy and Sheldon sprang to their feet, like alarmed prairie dogs. They stared at each other for a moment realizing simultaneous how much they hadn't missed having the boys as company. "It is Science Week." Sheldon said, glaring at the door, "they are not welcome at Science Week." This conclusion was aided by the realization that Amy was for all intents and purposes braless and only wearing only a little tee shirt and yoga pants. He thought she looked very charming. He did not need anyone else in the apartment to form their own opinion on this matter.

"Agreed. How shall we get rid of them?" Amy asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. Yeah, that was what Sheldon didn't want Howard and Raj gawking at.

"Come on!" Howard shouted, "we brought Thai take out and Cakebread Chardonnay! And Sheldon, we bought you a copy of the penultimate issue of the Flash/Gorilla warfare series among others."

"We should let them in." the couple said in unison.

"I mean, it would be rude to just send them away…" Amy really loved the Cakebread wine, but was almost 50 bucks a bottle. Amy was unwilling to pay that for 750 ml of liquid unless it was whale brain stem fluid. Also a hot meal she didn't have to cook herself with Sheldon supervising sounded delightful.

"Wait," Sheldon smirked, walking to the door, "State your reason for coming here."

"We are just trying to apologize for last week." Howard called back. Although they couldn't see him, both Sheldon and Amy thought they could hear Raj squeak and nod in the affirmative.

"Excellent. Leave the bribes in front of the door and then remove yourselves from the premises. All is forgiven." Sheldon ordered, smiling as Amy began silent clapping.

"We can't. Bernadette is being… forceful."

Amy knew what to do. She sat down and began writing on the back of a discarded cover sheet. She finished and then held the page for Sheldon to read. He nodded signed his name next to hers. He leaned down and slid it under the door. "This should release you for all liability. Now leave the goodies and go away."

Howard and Raj scanned the hand written document.

BMRW. Thank you for your kind concern. Regarding Sheldon's irritation with Raj and Howard, all has been forgiven and the friendship status quo has been restored. Please accept the signatures below as proof that Sheldon Lee Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler have accepted the offer of peace and are of sound mind and body. We shall see you Saturday evening. Affectionately, AFF.

Nodding, Raj and Howard initialed the document, "So, we'll see you on Saturday. Have fun!" Howard called.

As soon as the men's footsteps were heard descending the stairs, the apartment door opened and the loot was swiftly dragged into the room and the door slammed shut once again.

"Come to me." Amy said to the wine.

"Since you will be drinking alcohol, I should be allowed to read my comics." Sheldon said opening up the bag.

"I propose a compromise, we both drink the wine with dinner and then we both read the comics after dinner." Amy said, seriously.

"This is a break with Science Week protocol," Sheldon noted.

"No. It is actually very much in line with Science week protocol. I shall share with you some wine that I love so that you may understand its properties and now, at long last, you can teach me about the Flash. And explain why he is fighting a gorilla in a helmet?" Amy said glancing at the cover.

"You like gorillas." Sheldon defended.

"I love gorillas. That means I know they aren't much for haberdashery." She laughed going into the kitchen for plates.

"This isn't one of your primates. This is Gorilla Grodd. He is an evil, super intelligent, telepathic gorilla." Sheldon explained, opening the food bags..

"Excellent." She responded, settling down in her spot. "I like knowing who to root for."

Two hours later tipsy, and elated from not thinking about science for two hours. "A superior race of super intelligent gorillas living in a hidden city in Africa is completely possible…" Amy said, defensively, "I never said it wasn't."

"Then what are you trying to suggest?" Sheldon asked, flush with the thrill of battle and white wine.

"Two things… Telekinetic abilities and telepathy are not possible…" she enumerated, "And even if they were, how is the Flash going to stop this evil ape by running fast?"

Sheldon's eyes widened, in shock. "The Flash doesn't merely run fast. His mind is also able to process vast amounts of information in seconds. The speed of the scarlet speedster thought processes makes him almost immune to telepathy."

Amy raised an eye brow, "Fine. Grodd has no made up power over the Flash, but how does the ability to shield your thoughts and to run away rapidly stop an evil gorilla bent on world domination? That wouldn't stop a normal ape from flinging his feces?"

"You'll have to wait for the final issue?" Sheldon said, thinking he was tempting her.

"Ah, so in the next issue this will all make sense?" she laughed, "How alluring." Seeing him look a little dejected, "Here is the thing, these things might be possible, abstractly, but these people are not explaining it with any degree of sophistication. Grodd needs to either be out smarted by a more intelligent being or beaten down by a stronger one. I fail to see the benefit of all this hyper-activity."

Sheldon took a deep breath, then paused, "We will suspend this discussion until the final issue of Gorilla Warfare. Although, I will admit, it is nice to hold this kind of debate with a worthy adversary… It is 8pm."

"Yeah." Amy said, looking at her beckoning laptop, "I suppose we should hunker down for another hour and a half…"

"Or we could watch TV." Sheldon said firmly.

Amy wanted to protest, to refuse, to continue to stake out the intellectual high ground, but suddenly the outside world with all its mindless entertainment options sounded really good. Seeing her waiver, Sheldon tempted, "We could watch HGTV."

"You cannot be that desperate." Amy smirked. HGTV was kind of a special thing between her, Bernadette and Howard's mom.

"Try me." Clearly, he could be that desperate. Amy drew the key from hanging around her neck out of her shirt, Sheldon mirrored her. They paused staring at the keys for a moment and then they raced to open the top locked drawers on their respective desks.

Sheldon pulled out the remote control and Amy recovered the batteries. Before he put them in, he looked at Amy, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Do it." Her eyes blazed in rebellion.

One minute later they were watching the worst show on television, Love it or List it. "If you love super-villains you are going to love the homeowners they find for this show." Amy said enthusiastically.

Twenty minutes later, Sheldon shut off the television. "Those people are awful!"

"So you are turning off the television?" Amy smiled, incredulously.

"I don't have choice. I am not prepared to deal with that kind of thing." He said removing the batteries from the remote control and handing them to Amy, "It made me jumpy."

Amy looked at the batteries in her hand, "So you want to work?" she asked dejectedly.

"God, no." he looked horrified. "No work. Here, I'll put my comic books away, and you can start thinking up a game."

"Put the remote back in lock up." Amy said returning the batteries to her locked desk drawer, "Do it. You know neither of us can be trusted."

"I'd be offended, but that is actually an excellent point."

While Sheldon was filing his comic books, Amy tried to think about a game they could play. All she could think of was, Tell me what our moving to Geneva together looks like in your brain.

So when he emerged, she was sitting in her spot, thinking. Sheldon didn't speak, he just went to make tea. She would let him know when she was done.

"I want to talk about Switzerland." She said, clearly. "Do you have a plan for us, or was this just us talking about something vague in the future?"

He felt quite relieved. She was interested. Interested, and asking an excellent question. "Yes, I have a plan, but it isn't complete and I am still unsure of several variables."

"Such as?" She asked, indicating he should sit next to her.

"I don't know for sure if you want to come with me. If you don't, that is the end." He replied. "Do you want to do this with me?"

She nodded and took his hand, "I really want to. For so many reasons. I need to know, are you ready to act on it? How long do you think we'd be gone? What would the living arrangements be?"

"I am not totally ready, but I'd like to act before fall term. I think we should plan on one year to start. I've looked at housing in Geneva, we might be able to afford a 2 bedroom, but a one bedroom makes more sense. So…"

"We'd be sleeping together. Like last night? Or something more?" She asked.

Sheldon suddenly felt like his chest was going to explode. Because he had a couple more conclusions and he hoped she would understand them. "More, probably. One thing that has kept me from bringing this up is that, for us to do this, we should probably be married if we want to do this."

Amy's eyes widened, "Huh?"

"I think if we want to move to a far off land… there are many logical reasons for us…"

"Are you asking me to marry you?" Amy's face was shocked.

"No. I am stating that with our moving to Switzerland together makes logical…" he began speaking rapidly.

"Quit saying the world logical!" she snapped, put her hand over her face and took a cleansing breath, "Do you wish to marry me?"

"I believe so." He said, not looking at her.

It was Sheldon. She decided to take that as a yes. "All right. I'd be amendable to getting married, but we need to talk about marital relations."

"What about them?" he swallowed.

"Will we have them?"

"Yes." His hand started to sweat. "You know I've been working on being more comfortable with contact. I've been having some success…"

"I know." Amy smiled at him. "but, Sheldon, this is a leap. It would put us on a time line. If we marry, I will want to know the fun won't just be theoretical. But I also don't want to push you into anything you aren't ready for."

Once again blessed with low expectations, Sheldon thought, unhappily. "I am not a child."

"Neither am I." She said leaning back, "Which is why I understand this. I never thought I would be feeling what I do for you and wanting these things. A good part of my not pressing for us to go further is… my God, what if you said yes?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, "Amy, look at me. What do you mean?"

Obeying him, she stared into his eyes, "there is a medium chance that our first sexual encounter will involve me locking myself in the bathroom and curling myself into a ball while I hyperventilate into a towel."

"But you aren't afraid of this, are you? You know, of intercourse."

"Yes, I am. I just bury it. Okay. Still a shame-free zone, right? Sheldon, we can't both be freaking out about this equally, it makes it too easy to do nothing. And I do want to be with you. I believe it will be wonderful. I am just not sure… I don't know that I am going to be bringing that much to the table. Sexually." She gnawed on her bottom lip.

"Shame-free zone." He took a breath, "From what I understand, the pressure really won't be on you the first time we engage in intercourse. You'll just have to be nice and patient, which you always are. I am the one who has to put things… in places…"

Suddenly she giggled, "Put things… in places?" he rolled his eyes, "I am not making fun of you. I promise. I am just so happy that you are my guy." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "I think we've done really well this week. I've been really happy being here with just you."

Sheldon put his arms around her and gave her a hug, "It has been good. Being able to discuss things… and it's helped. I think when the week is done, we'll have made the progress we need to. I have one problem…"

She snuggled closer, pleased that the usual rigid tension of his hugs seemed to be gone, "What problem?"

"I want us to stay here." He laughed.

Amy pulled back, grinning, "Can't. If we become hermits science loses."

"You forget the breakthroughs made by recluses living in caves."

"Everyone forgets those, Sheldon, because nobody knows about them. Whenever they achieve greatness, they can't tell anyone because they have to go out into the desert and forage for bark to eat."

"Sometimes they eat roots and thistles." Sheldon said, sighing, "Fine. We have to rejoin the world. But maybe you don't have to go home."

Amy didn't actually know what to say to that, "Maybe. But let's not decide yet. You have to consider Leonard. There is a 60% chance I am going to spend Saturday night drinking wine and listening to Penny bitch about Leonard's very minor and sometimes non-existent faults."

"That's true. They are spending a week in a sweaty former leper colony. There isn't that much that could go right." He agreed. "That works out. While he is ranting and raving about how he can't please her, I'll be able to access the internet!"

"Shall we recap the day?" Amy asked. It was protocol.

"Well, we slept in the same bed, you told me about issues that you were having at work. We decided you should write a book proposal. I suggested we should move to Geneva. I worked on balancing equation 3 while you began writing the proposal. Then Raj and Howard brought us food and fun. You agreed to read the next issue of Flash. Then we tried to watch TV, but our only option was Love it or List it so we didn't. Then we discussed Geneva again, I quasi-proposed to you, you quasi-accepted. We talked about our mutual lack of sexual prowess…"

"Our theoretical lack of sexual prowess. We might surprise ourselves."

"Good lord, I hope so. And then we decided not to become hermits and agreed to wait to discuss kicking Leonard out. Do you concur with my recap?"

"I do." She stood up and offered him her hand to get up, "Let's call it a night."

He took her hand and when she moved to go to bed, "Will you stay with me again?"

Amy smiled and nodded.

A/N: I am not promising smut, but they aren't just going to sleep…