Amy checked her phone for any signs of a message from Sheldon and when she saw the screen was just as blank as it was an hour ago, she swivelled around on her stool to face her lab partner. Susan was leaning with her chin propped on her hands as if she were waiting for a something monumental to occur.

"Do you remember last summer when I had booked a couple of days off because I was supposed to be having a girly weekend in Las Vegas?"

"Vaguely…I think I recall you saying something about it when Dr. Gunderson wanted you to go over to Sweden for a couple of weeks, and you said that you couldn't because you were on the no-fly list."

"Well, I'd got pulled out of line for a pat down search and I accidentally broke the TSA agent's nose with my elbow. Needless to say my girlies were not in the most favourable of moods, so we headed back to Sheldon's place so that Bernadette could catch a ride home with Howard. The guys were planning a weekend of Dungeons & Dragons followed by a Sci-Fi movie marathon."

"That's some kind of fantasy board game isn't it? I think little brother used to play that with his friends growing up."

"Some kids never grow out of it, trust me. Anyway, the guys persuaded us to stick around and join in the game and everything was going fine until Penny made everyone drink one too many of her magic potions…double strength margarita's to the mortal world and things got a little too personal for my liking and I kinda flipped out…"

"Again, tell me everything and don't skip the small stuff!"

"Okay…it was a couple of hours into the game, Howard was acting as Dungeon Master which was really cool as he did loads of celebrity impressions…Al Pacino and Christopher Walken were the favourites of the evening…Penny and Bernadette were happily sloshed and we were all taking turns rolling the dice…."

"Come on, Mama wants a pair of dead ogres." Bernadette stepped up to the board with a fierce look of determination on her petite face.

"Seventeen!" Howard exclaimed, "The larger ogre is dead." Everyone cheered and rose to their feet, doing a little happy dance. "The other ogre says: 'You killed my brother, now Ogre Thanksgiving is ruined.'" He affected the same rasp as before, but with a sad undertone.

"That is amazing." Sheldon remarked to Amy. "He made me care about the ogre."

"All right, Amy, there's one ogre left." Leonard explained as Amy picked up the dice and prepared to roll. "Take him out."

"Okay."

"Pretend he's that TSA agent. Come on." Penny offered words of encouragement as Amy stepped up to the board.

"Nineteen! This is turning out to be even better than Vegas!" Amy exclaimed as everyone started cheering again.

"Ha, ha. No, it's not." Penny clapped along with the others, but her face told the true story.

Another pitcher of margarita's and a few hours later, the game was nearly at an end. Howard had just finished describing the dragon's potential demise in an affected Christopher Walken voice and Leonard leant forward in his chair to look eagerly at Amy.

"Amy, it's your turn. We need one more hit. Finish him off!"

"Okay, here we go…Fifteen…"

"It's a hit, the dragon collapses to the ground!" Howard confirmed in his normal voice, cheers rang out only to be interrupted by Sheldon who wanted more of Howard's celebrity impressions.

"Wait…wait…and says…" Sheldon looked over at Howard with a raised eyebrow, Howard sighed but mimicked Christopher Walken again as the dragon's life slipped away.

"Mother? Is that you? Your little boy is coming home."

"I don't know about you guys, but I've been through the emotional wringer tonight." Sheldon pressed his hand against his chin and glanced around the apartment.

"This may be the potion talking, but you are one fine-ass Dungeon Master." Bernadette leant over and ran her hand through Howard's hair and cooed into his ear.

"Oh yeah, when we get home, I'm gonna take you on a whole different adventure." Howard waggled his eyebrows suggestively at his wife and she giggled in response.

"Another quest by Wolowitz? Count me in." Sheldon announced from the couch in glee and Amy leant a little closer to explain Bernadette's suddenly narrow eyed expression.

"Sheldon, they're talking about sex." Amy said quietly.

"Oh, then I'm out." He replied quickly and turned his attention back to his clipboard.

"Ooh, I have an idea…" Penny chirped up, "Since it's not happening anytime soon… why doesn't your character," She pointed at Amy, "And your character…" Penny then pointed at Sheldon, "…do it in the game."

"Ooh!" Bernadette cooed and nudged Howard to join in. "Come on, back me up here."
"Oh, Ooh!"

"Okay, I cast a love spell on Sheldon and Amy." Bernadette announced after taking another sip of the margarita potion.

"Ooh! Sorry, I thought we were gonna do that…" Leonard started to coo and then stopped when he realised that no one else was joining in. Howard rolled the dice and announced in a deep voice; "The love spell takes effect. When Sheldon looks at Amy she is the most beautiful…. half-orc he's ever seen; and he's overcome with a desire to rip her armour off and gaze fondly at her four hairy breasts. When Amy sees Sheldon, he looks…well, just like Sheldon because apparently she's into that." Howard looked over to see Sheldon and Amy sitting unnaturally still on the couch. "What do you do?" He asked, and everyone looked up in surprise as Amy suddenly rose up from the couch.

"I don't like this." She muttered tearfully and bolted down the hallway towards Sheldon's room, slamming the door behind her.

"Amy. Amy. Amy." Amy sat on Sheldon's bed and heard his repeated pattern of knocking on the door.

"What?" She called out, and kept her face averted as Sheldon quietly opened his bedroom door and stepped inside.

"I've never knocked on my own door before." Sheldon said quietly as he closed the door behind him. "That was a wild ride."

"You don't have to come in here and cheer me up." Amy said softly as she continued to sit on the edge of Sheldon's bed, staring at the wall.

"Thank you. Would you mind telling everyone else that? Because they sure think otherwise."

"I'll tell you what they think." Amy said as she turned around on the bed to face Sheldon. "They think our relationship is a joke!"

"Well, I don't think our relationship is a joke." Sheldon said as he crossed the room to stand near Amy.

"Sheldon…are we ever going to have an intimate relationship?" Amy asked the forbidden question and could see that she had taken her boyfriend completely by surprise as he stared at her without blinking for quite some time.

"Oh, my, that's an uncomfortable topic." He finally said, before coming closer to perch next to Amy on the side of his bed. "Amy…before I met you, I never had any interest in being intimate with anyone."

"And now?"

"And now what?"

"Do you have any interest now?" Amy blurted out in frustration, honestly it was sometimes like talking with a child!

"I have not ruled it out." Sheldon admitted in a shy tone.

"Wow. Talk dirty to me."

"I know it doesn't seem like it to you, but for me, what we have…is extremely intimate." Sheldon moved microscopically closer on the bed and gazed into Amy's eyes.

"I guess I know that." She finally said, "It's just…part of me wants more."

"More?" Sheldon said incredulously, edging back to his original position on the bed. "I mean look at us. It's only been three years, here we are in bed together." He finally managed to raise a small smile from Amy and she relaxed her stiff posture a little.

"Come on. Let's go back out there."

"Well, no, hold on." Sheldon placed his hand on Amy's arm as she went to rise from the bed; at his fleeting touch, she sat back down again. "My elven magic-user and your half-orc warrior did have a love spell cast on them." Sheldon dropped his eyes away from Amy as his fingers started tracing a random pattern on his bedspread. "We wouldn't really be playing the game right if we didn't see that through."

"Okay." Amy said slowly, and Sheldon got up to seek out another set of dice and a hardback book to roll them onto.

"I believe that, uh, we just killed a dragon. While the others pillage the corpse I lead you to a secluded area where I attempt to remove your leather armour." Sheldon rolled the dice and looked up at Amy. "It comes off.

"Oh…" Amy pressed her fingers against her lips.

"What do you do?" Sheldon asked, Amy looked at Sheldon and thought about what the appropriate response could be under the circumstances.

"I…kiss you on the…lips."

"I kiss you back on the…" Sheldon rolled the dice and looked at the number, before nodding. "…lips as well. Your turn."

"I remove your armour. What do you do?"

"I erotically caress your…" Sheldon rolled and they both looked down to see a six. "…nose."

"Keep rolling." Amy ordered firmly, and surprisingly enough Sheldon did just that. They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Hey, you guys have been in there for a while. You doing okay?" Leonard called through the closed door.

"We're fine. Thank you." Sheldon replied, keeping both eyes on the dice as he prepared to roll again.

"Okay, we just wanted to say we feel bad…" Penny started to say and Amy yelled out in frustration.

"Go away! Sheldon is nibbling on my…" Sheldon rolled the die and both he and Amy waited with bated breath for the result. "Fourteen! Yes!"

"I take it fourteen was somewhere good?" Susan asked as she watched Amy's face flush a little in remembrance.

"You might say that." Amy replied, glancing over at the clock again and noticing that it was now a quarter to six. She slipped off her stool and pulled off her white lab coat. "Come on, Susan. It's time for you to meet Daniel. Enough of my romance, or lack of it, we've got to get you to meet your prince charming."

"But…that can't be the end of it! How did you get from the no PDA to where you are now?" Susan protested as Amy firmly steered her out of the lab, making sure that everything was secure and the lights were switched off before locking the door behind them.

"You mean, me in Pasadena and my boyfriend a hundred miles away?" Amy quipped back, as she swung her purse over her shoulder and started to walk down the dimly lit corridors toward the rear parking lot.

"Very funny…I meant you've both seemed to be happier this year than I've ever seen you. I know that Sheldon's had a rough time over these last couple of months but before that you seemed to be getting along great…and don't think I didn't see you holding hands in the car park when you were driving him on your date nights!"

"Yes, well…things started to move forward quite rapidly after Valentine's Day this year. After last year, I felt that I had to 'up my game' a little, and so I booked a romantic weekend away on a train to Napa Valley. I thought that it would be something that Sheldon would enjoy as he is quite the train enthusiast."

"Uh oh, from the look on your face, something tells me that things didn't quite go according to plan." Susan caught the brief look of almost despair that crossed Amy's face and she felt Amy shiver a little in remembrance.

"I'll tell you what happened…Eric!"