A/N: Long time no see, folks! I sincerely apologise for this long gap; as mentioned in the previous chapter, I have recently started my second year of uni and it's a very practical music course I'm studying, so I really don't have much spare time on my hands, and when I do I use that time to relax and sleep…! I've been excited to have been able to finish this chapter for you guys, though. It's probably not the best-written chapter as I've been back and forth adding bits into it, but I hope you enjoy it.

N.B. This won't be an explicit chapter, but never fear! Still lots more to come in the next one…

Chapter 7: The Carnal Stimulation

Amy woke up peacefully by Sheldon's side, her arm draped over his stomach and head resting on his subtly hairy chest. She glanced behind her to see that Sheldon's arm was arched around her shoulders, whilst his other hand was resting over Amy's on his chest. Amy smiled contently at the fact that, even subconsciously, Sheldon was showing her such sweet affection. She couldn't imagine a moment more perfect than this; their bare bodies melding into one another's as the sun shone in through the window.

Oh, crap. It's morning. What time is it? Amy suddenly thought. It was a Tuesday morning, and she hadn't heard an alarm go off yet. She shot her head up to put her glasses on and looked over to check Sheldon's clock. It was 8am, and they both had to be at work in an hour. She gently shook Sheldon's shoulder to wake him up.

"Sheldon," Amy asked with concern, "It's 8am."

Sheldon slowly turned his head in her direction and struggled to open his eyes. He blinked several times, and slowly looked towards his clock before shooting to an upright position. Amy flinched back.

"No. Not good." Sheldon hurried out of bed towards his neatly-folded clothes set out for the morning. "I knew this would happen."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked, frowning a little.

"This is all your fault. If you hadn't have come round this wouldn't have happened. This is why I don't like change."

Amy became extremely annoyed. She knew Sheldon had these moments, but this was out of line. "My fault? You're the one who invited me over in the first place! And besides it was nobody's fault, we just overslept." Amy despaired, throwing the sheet to one side to get up and dressed as quickly as she could.

"I never oversleep," Sheldon said frustratingly whilst thrusting his clothes on over his body. "Like my bowel movements, my waking and sleeping times run like a German train schedule. If you hadn't have tempted me in the first place I wouldn't have invited you to stay the night."

Amy paused as she took her clothes out of her overnight bag and turned to face Sheldon. "Really, is that so?" Amy continued to quickly get dressed, but wasn't finished with Sheldon. "If I remember correctly, I never 'tempted' you in the first place. You were the one who came to visit me when I was ill even though I didn't ask you to. I didn't even tempt you – far from that, actually! You were the one who suggested our experiment; you were the one who made the first move; you were the one who initiated things last night when you asked me if I had contraceptives! If you think you can blame this on me, Sheldon, you are sadly mistaken."

Sheldon had finished getting dressed by this point. "But I can," Sheldon retorted. "I would never have done those things before I met you. They went against everything I believed in. My brain has been frazzled and I don't like it."

Amy felt hurt. "So last night, did that mean anything to you?"

They both stood in silence for a moment. Sheldon looked back at her, so angry yet so in love with her. He hadn't felt feelings this strongly before, and they confused him. He found it difficult to communicate feelings to people in the right way, but he wish he could have the ability that Amy had of being able to communicate feelings just with a look; he was able to read her eyes to understand what she was trying to communicate to him. Why couldn't he try the same thing with her? Of course it did, he thought. You are the only person in this known universe I want to be intimate with, for the rest of my life. I love you, Amy Farrah Fowler.

Sheldon was no good with body language, though. His prolonged silence and frustrated look convinced Amy otherwise. She fastened the last button of her cardigan, shoved her belongings into her bag and stormed out of the room. Sheldon sighed and briefly hung his head in shame, before rushing out to stop her. "Amy, wait!"

"I'm late for work, Sheldon," Amy said furiously without looking back, fighting back the tears that were desperate to come out. "Goodbye."

At that point Leonard opened and entered through the front door, as Amy rushed past him. Leonard was taken aback as he followed his gaze to the staircase which Amy ran down, before looking back to Sheldon, confused. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing," Sheldon snapped, overcome with emotions he could not control. "Where were you? Why didn't you wake me?"

Leonard was still confused. "I decided to stay at Penny's last night. Besides, I didn't want to intrude… Just in case you two wanted some privacy."

"Well work is more important than females, Leonard," Sheldon barked and marched back to his room. "Physics is more important. Females just distract you. The only female we need in our lives is Marie Curie." Sheldon rambled on in this way until he shut himself in his bedroom. Despite Leonard being used to Sheldon acting out like this sometimes, he was concerned about his friend. Something bad had clearly happened between Sheldon and Amy.

Sheldon lay back down on his bed and curled up on his side. He didn't like the feeling of anger, especially anger with himself. He wasn't really angry with Amy. All the changes in his life were just very overwhelming for him, but they wouldn't necessarily be bad changes, and he foolishly took it out on her. The need to find another human being to share one's life with had always puzzled Sheldon – maybe because he found he was so interesting all by himself – but since Amy came along he found life to be so much more interesting than he could ever have imagined. Amy was an enigma to Sheldon, and just like any other confusing formulae or unsolved equation that Sheldon was faced with, he constantly yearned to learn more about her.

"Sheldon?" Leonard called gently from the other side of the door. He knocked a couple of times, before slowly making his way in. Sheldon didn't move; he stayed in his curled position facing away from Leonard on the bed. Leonard checked his watch to make sure they had some time to spare, then took a seat beside Sheldon. "Sheldon, do you want to talk about what happened between you and Amy?"

Sheldon wasn't ready to tell anybody about that yet. "Who says Amy and I even did anything last night?"

"No, I meant just now. Believe me, I can't see you having coitus yet." Sheldon felt quite offended knowing full well that he easily did it last night, but he kept quiet. "But seriously, have you and Amy fallen out?"

Sheldon sighed, and gave into his emotions. "I don't know."

Leonard sighed back, knowing just how difficult this all was for Sheldon. He placed a sympathetic hand on Sheldon's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Sheldon considered it for a moment, but decided against it. He looked over at Leonard. "No. Let's go to work. We're running late."

Leonard nodded. "Okay." Leonard went towards the doorway, as Sheldon still struggled to get himself up. "You haven't had your breakfast yet, buddy." Sheldon sat up and shrugged. Leonard smiled at Sheldon. "How about I quickly make you some French toast and you can eat in the car?"

Sheldon, turned to Leonard blankly, before gradually pulling a small smile. "Okay." At that moment, Sheldon was much more motivated to get up and go to work. He still had lots to think about, but maybe work would make him feel a little better and think a bit more clearly.

Work didn't seem to help Sheldon at all. As his job required him to sit alone in an office to solve problems, only one problem seemed to be on his mind. He couldn't concentrate on his whiteboard at all, or whenever he could, the image of virtual particles in his mind would just morph into an image of Amy's dandruff cascading from her mud-coloured hair.

Lunchtime. Sheldon decided to text Amy to confirm that she would still be joining him with the others at the Cheesecake Factory later that evening. He knew she was upset, but hopefully by that time she – and he – will have forgotten about it and moved on. This was the normal routine anyway, and she wouldn't break that.

No response. She generally kept her phone beside her whilst she did her work. It had been a sufficient period of time since he had sent the text for her to respond, even with taking a slight delay into account.

Back at home after work, Sheldon remained very quiet trying to figure out why Amy hadn't been replying. Even when she got annoyed with him, she would still at least answer his calls or occasionally respond to his texts. That wasn't a good sign. She may well be in danger.

"Are you ready to go?" Leonard asked while putting on his jacket.

Sheldon continued to worry about Amy, until he processed what Leonard had just said. "Huh?"

Leonard looked over at Sheldon whilst collecting his wallet and keys. "Sheldon, it's Tuesday. Cheesecake Factory night? Come on, you're usually the one getting me to hurry up."

Sheldon had to make sure Amy was safe. He shot up and went to grab his jacket. "Leonard, may you drive me to Amy's?"

Leonard paused. "Yeah, sure. Why? Is Amy coming? Have you guys made up?"

"I don't know. I fear she may be in danger."

"What? Why? What's happened?"

"That's the point. I don't know. She hasn't responded to my texts all day. This never happens."

Leonard sighed. "Sheldon, you guys had a fight. I think she just needs her space. Penny's done that to me plenty of times."

"Yeah, well Amy's not like Penny. Nobody is like Amy…" Sheldon trailed off. "Just, please, take me to hers."

Leonard found it sweet that Sheldon cared for Amy that much. "Alright. Let's go then."

As they pulled up to Amy's apartment building, Leonard spotted her car. "See?" Leonard said to Sheldon, gesturing towards her car. "Amy's obviously at home. I need to pick up the guys so I'll come back to collect you when you've finished speaking to her, okay?"

"Okay," Sheldon responded rapidly as he rushed out of the car. Different thoughts and emotions rushed through his mind as he made his way up to her apartment. At least she's safe at home. Why didn't she call me? Does she have company? Is that why she didn't respond? He'd never had this kind of analytical frenzy before.

He paced towards her door and knocked thrice with alarm, calling her name. Within moments Amy opened the door. He had never felt so relieved to see her.

"Sheldon, what's wrong?" She still didn't seem very happy with him, but she thought there may have been an emergency. Before she could even prepare herself, Sheldon wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Amy paused and was taken aback, keeping her arms in mid-air unsure of where to place them. She gradually patted his shoulders, before pushing herself back to look at him. "Sheldon, what's going on? Why are you here?"

Sheldon felt hurt. She was acting so casually, and he'd been worried sick about her all day. He spoke firmly. "Why didn't you respond to me?"

Amy frowned and brought her hands down from off his shoulders. "Sheldon, I'm still mad at you. You really hurt me this morning."

"Yeah, well you really hurt me too." Sheldon was angry now. Amy hadn't heard this tone of voice before, and she stepped back in shock. Sheldon's eyes turned misty. "You always warn me if you're not going to be able to respond to my messages. Even on days when you're irritated with me. You were in such a distressed state this morning, anything dangerous could have happened to you. But to know you've been as right as rain whilst I got distracted from my work all day and had to disturb yet another evening's routine is a tad infuriating, Amy."

Amy pursed her lips and sniffed heavily, but this did not keep her putting Sheldon in his place. "Whose fault is that then? It all just comes down to the routine, doesn't it Sheldon? You're not happy for me to have my own space for just one day if it means it's going to disrupt your schedule. I don't have to be in contact with you 24/7, especially not when you treat me the way you did this morning…"

Amy continued to tell him how worthless he made her feel earlier that day. Sheldon suddenly reached a breaking point in his emotions. He was still so angry at her for keeping him on edge all day, and at the same time he was distraught to hear what was coming out of Amy's mouth… all caused by him. His attitude, his personality, his general being. Sheldon loved Amy like crazy. How could such love for her have turned into such pain and hurt on her end?

His lips were pursed and his eyebrows were clenched. He was breathing heavily through his nose. He blinked, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. Amy noticed this, and she started to stutter, yet was still determined to get her viewpoint across to him. Sheldon interrupted her by cupping his hands around Amy's head, as he pulled her into a firm kiss. Amy tried to fight against it, pushing his torso away from her, but Sheldon could not be moved. He placed one hand around her lower back and powerfully pulled her closer. Her arms stayed hanging by her sides, but she didn't fight it anymore. Her eyebrows were still scrunched in frustration, but her eyes were clenched in passion. Sheldon sucked on Amy's bottom lip, desperate for her, as though this was his last moment with her. He stopped abruptly as Amy stumbled back a few steps, and they both glared at each other in a way that neither of them had experienced before. One part of them didn't want to see the other at all right now, while simultaneously another part of them longed for the other. Amy brought her hands up to her lips, getting goose bumps just thinking about the moment they shared just now.

Amy suddenly experienced lower localised vascular throbbing. Their hearts both pounded, and Amy's chest heaved. She moved closer to Sheldon, yet noticed out of the corner of her eye that her front door was still wide open… with people standing right outside. Sheldon turned his head to see what was distracting Amy. Sure enough, it was Leonard who had come back to pick him up with Raj and Howard alongside him. Their mouths were agape, and Sheldon and Amy stared cautiously back at them in silence.