AN: And we have….Shamy lift off! Be prepared for a little OOC action from them both, bear in mind that nearly everyone has already met Amy from earlier years but there is still the matter of meeting Penny…I'm fully prepared for a little harsh critism for the way I'm going to have Penny behave – got my big girl pants on, I can take it! If you remember this part on the show, Penny had just spend a drunken evening of rolling around the sheets with Leonard and is still feeling a little confused, she's very protective of Sheldon…but that's all it is, I swear – definitely no Shenny action to be found!
The next afternoon, or preevening as Sheldon had stated; the three men entered the designated meeting point, a coffee shop within walking distance of Los Robles Avenue.
"In a few minutes, when I gloat over the failure of this enterprise, how would you prefer I do it? The standard 'I told you so?' or would a simple 'neenah' suffice?" Sheldon asked as they walked further into the coffee shop.
"You don't know we're wrong yet." Raj insisted as he and Howard started looking around the shop for Sheldon's perfect match. Raj had only seen her from the picture on her profile but Howard had seen her twice before and he nudged Raj when he spotted the familiar figure crossing over the shop.
"That's her coming over now. Play it cool, Sheldon."
"I think we'll go for haughty derision…" Sheldon shot them both his best haughty look and started to speak, only to be interrupted by a voice coming from behind.
"Hello at last, Sheldon. I don't think we've ever formally met... "Sheldon turned around to see a small bespectacled brunette standing right behind him. She was dressed in a black and purple striped cardigan over a blue plaid shirt, and he could just see the neck line of a red undershirt from where the top button of her plaid shirt was undone at her throat.
"Hello…" Sheldon replied quietly as he looked at the small woman standing before him.
"My name is Amy…"
"Amy Farrah Fowler? You're the one that the site matched me with?" Sheldon shook his head in surprise, "I simply cannot fathom why one such as yourself would willingly place themselves on a dating site…This is a surprise, I'm sure your Mother wouldn't approve, Amy."
"Oh, it was my Mother's idea. We had a compromise, I promised to let her put my details up on the site and to attend at least one date per year, in exchange for use of her George Forman grill."
"Interesting." Sheldon nodded, seemingly unaware that Raj and Howard were exchanging looks of amazement behind his back. "My mother and I have the same agreement about church."
"Yes, Aunt Mary has mentioned your aversion a time or two, I don't object to the concept of a deity, but I'm baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance."
"Well, then you might want to avoid a prolonged stay in East Texas." Sheldon informed her, and Amy nodded in agreement.
"Noted, so far I've managed to keep it to a long weekend; it seems that I can't take the risk of extending my stay any further."
"I don't know how we've managed to always miss each other in the past; I find our conversation quite riveting. May I buy you a beverage?" Sheldon continued to stare at Amy, thinking that it was fascinating that someone so in tune with his own mind could have been in his presence her whole life, if only he had made the time sooner.
"Oh, tepid water, please. I try to avoid all forms of caffeine wherever possible."
"Amy Farrah Fowler, I like how you think! I am exactly the same, tell me how do you feel about herbal teas?"
"I like them, I am particularly fond of chamomile in times of stress, lemon zest for when I need a pick me up…" Amy leant in a little closer as if she were sharing a great secret. "Sometimes I even like to have two different flavours mixed together…like blackcurrant and liquorice."
"You decadent hussy!" Sheldon nudged her shoulder and gave her the first genuine smile that he'd given all day. "I happen to have all of those teas in my apartment, instead of tepid water why don't you come up and have a cup of tea with me? We have a lot to catch up on…"
"Actually…" Sheldon held his breath and let it out with a sigh of relief when Amy nodded and continued. "That does sound rather nice, I'm always concerned about the level of hygiene in coffee shops such as this; how hot is their water temperature? Is it enough to properly sterilise the mugs and cutlery properly?"
"Oh, it's like talking to another version of myself!" Sheldon smiled again and stepped forward to open the door of the coffee shop to let Amy walk out in front of him. Howard and Raj stood near the window watching the two of them depart.
"Did you see that? He actually held the door open for her and let her go first…"
"Dude, who cares about the door? He offered to buy her a drink, then he smiled at her and now they are on the way back to his apartment where they will be completely alone…"
"Yeah, I need to call Mary back and give her the news." Howard reached for his phone and started dialling, as he and Raj started walking slowly back to the apartment; keeping a close eye on the couple strolling along in front of them. He waited for Mary to pick up and then started talking. "Mrs. Cooper – operation Shamy is a complete success. It went off without a hitch, better than I expect to tell you the truth."
"Don't skimp on the details, Howard…and stop with all the Mrs. Cooper nonsense; we're partners now, so call me Mary, please."
"Okay Mary; first of all he knew who she was as soon as she said her first name. It was as if there were no other women called Amy in the world. They started chatting straight away, he offered to buy her a drink and he even smiled at her; not one of his fake grimaces, but a natural smile; I don't think I've ever seen him look that happy before."
"Oh, I'm gonna start to well up in a minute…" Mary paused, and Howard could hear the rustling of a tissue and a delicate sniff before Mary came back on the line. "Sorry, carry on."
"Well, at the moment Raj and I are following Sheldon back to his apartment, keeping ourselves just out of sight."
"Hold on a minute! I thought you said he wasn't meetin' her until four thirty? It's only just gone that now! He bolted didn't he? Aw, Shelly…"
"Mary, he didn't bolt…we're following at a discreet distance because Sheldon invited Amy to go over for a cup of tea…something about how she didn't trust that the water was hot enough to sanitise the mugs properly in the coffee shop. What do you want us to do? Keep following them into the apartment or just let them be?"
"Oh that's a tough one…I want them to get along, but I wanna know all the details too!"
"What about if we hang over at Penny's for a little while and then make some excuse to go over to Sheldon's in thirty minutes or so? Listen, they're about to head inside so I'll have to call you back later." Howard disconnected the call and he and Raj remained out of sight as Sheldon led Amy into the lobby and then up the stairs. They waited until they couldn't hear their footsteps any longer and then raced up the stairs to knock on Penny's door.
"Hey Howard! Hey Raj! What's up?"
"Can we hide out in here for a little while? We're on a time sensitive mission and we need to report back our findings to HQ, in about half an hour."
"Sure, come on in." Penny stepped back from the door and let the two men into her apartment. "You're lucky, you just caught me coming in."
"Did you happen to see Sheldon going into his apartment?" Howard asked as he kept himself close to Penny's front door. Penny frowned a little as she nodded. "Yeah, but only from the back. It looked as if he had someone with him, I just assumed it was Leonard."
"Oh no, I think we can say it most definitely was not Leonard." Howard flipped his phone open again and hit the redial button. "Mary? We've confirmed that they are both in the apartment now. How long do you want us to leave them alone?" Howard listened for a moment and then made a few noises of agreement, "Okay, call you later, bye."
"Mary? Mary Cooper? What's going on?" Penny crossed her arms over her chest and stared directly at Raj, who flushed and turned his head to look in the other direction. "Spill it, Howard."
"Sheldon has a girl over in the apartment!" Howard finally blurted out and Penny slapped him on the arm, hard.
"Shut up!"
"It's true, her Mother, Sheldon's Mother and Sheldon's Meemaw have been trying to get them to meet for over twenty years now, they just kept missing each other; the last time was by a matter of seconds. Amy had come over to look at this apartment and Sheldon was stuck in traffic when he and Raj stopped to buy burgers. By the time she'd looked at the apartment, you had been in to sign the lease; she got the call when she was still here. She came over to see Sheldon, Leonard and I chatted with her for a while and then she left." Howard paused as Raj whispered something in his ear. He nodded and then continued. "They walked straight passed each other on the stairs but didn't recognise each other…Penny? Penny!" Howard stopped as Penny started sniffing into a tissue.
"It's just sooo romantic! It's like destiny has kept them apart…and now they've finally met!"
"Yeah well, if I had been a little quicker on my feet; she might have been Mrs. Howard Wolowitz by now. I actually met her first, back in 2002."
"Shut up!" Penny repeated again and Howard stepped back before she could slap his arm again.
"Just one of the many occasions that the fickle finger of fate chose to keep them separated; again, they missed each other by a matter of minutes…I got a call from Ma, took my eyes off the prize for one minute and she was gone…I didn't see her again until she turned up looking for an apartment to rent. Apparently that was the reason Sheldon was a little off with you at first; he'd been looking forward to having Amy live across the hall from him, he'd even devised a set of games that he thought she would find intellectually stimulating…yeah, she skipped a couple of grades in school as well; making them even more of a perfect match."
"This is so freakin' like a romance movie that I expect Keanu Reeves to come waltzing out of the bedroom at any second." Penny muttered, torn between staying and listening to more of Howard's story and marching over to press her ear against Sheldon's front door. Raj whispered something to Howard again and the smaller man nodded.
"Raj said, only if his girl Sandy was in it too…"
"Yeah, it's like our very own version of 'The Lake House'. Right, I'm going over there, who's with me?" Penny agreed with Raj's statement and then decided to find out exactly what was happening over in 4B. Raj looked at Howard, who checked the time on his watch.
"It's been fifteen minutes…if he had done something to scare her off, I'm sure we would have heard it by now. I say we listen outside the door for a minute and then casually walk in as if we didn't realise they were there." Howard suggested and the three of them slipped across the hallway to press their ear against Sheldon's front door.
"Mmm, that's definitely Sheldon's voice…and Amy's…Oh God, he's doing it again!" Howard murmured as he listened to the low rumble of voices within.
"Doing what, Howard?"
"Laughing…she actually managed to make Sheldon laugh!"
"That's it! I'm going in!" Penny declared and prepared to open the door…
