After spending the entire ride back from the coffee shop chatting nineteen to the dozen, both Sheldon and Amy fell silent as they walked up the four flights of stairs to Sheldon's apartment. They turned the last corner of the stairwell side by side and their hands brushed together, sending a tiny jolt of sensation through the both of them.
"Oh boy…that was unexpected." Sheldon paused a few steps from the landing and hesitatingly stretched out his pinkie so that it lightly touched Amy's forefinger and then his breath caught in his throat as she turned her hand so that their fingers entwined completely. "There it is again…"
"Is that your apartment?" Amy wrapped her fingers completely around Sheldon's palm and nodded her head towards the blue door at the top of the stairs. Sheldon nodded, and started walking again; keeping their hands clasped tightly together. He fumbled slightly with his keys at first and then inserted the correct one in the lock; pushing the door open with a shy grin.
"Well…here we are, I told you it was a little messy."
"It's not so bad," Amy replied as she walked in behind Sheldon and glanced around, grinning when she saw that Sheldon's idea of 'messy' was the loaded laundry hamper placed near the front door, presumably ready for when he made his way down to the laundry facilities in the basement. "It's no worse than your cramped little apartment at Harvard; it never ceased to amaze me how you persuaded the Dean to re-arrange your weekend lecture series so that you could still keep to your laundry schedule."
"Heh…" Sheldon let out a breathy chuckle and gave Amy's hand a light squeeze as he led them both over to the couch and tugged her down to sit beside him. "How he ever thought that he could get any student to attend Saturday night lectures in the first place still puzzles me…I imagine that my new time slot of ten until one didn't win me any favours either."
"You know, it was your stories about Harvard that had me choosing them out of all of the other places that I had acceptance letters for." Amy said as she leant her head against Sheldon's shoulder and felt him raise his arm slightly so that it wrapped around her shoulders; it seemed only natural that he should follow that move with a gentle kiss dropped against her forehead as he rested his cheek against her hair.
"It's strange." Sheldon said suddenly and Amy tilted her head back so that she could look in his eyes.
"Strange, how?"
"We came here to talk…we should be bombarding each other with questions about anything and everything; and yet I feel quite content in just sitting here knowing that you are actually sitting by my side, no longer a dream but an actual reality." Sheldon reached up to lightly run his finger over the satiny softness of Amy's cheekbone and gave her a soft smile, answered with a tender smile of her own as she reached up to capture his hand and press a kiss against his palm. Sheldon shivered lightly in reaction and Amy hummed under her breath.
"It's stronger now isn't it?" She didn't even have to explain her cryptic question, seeing the answer reflected back in Sheldon's azure gaze. "It's not the foggy, almost disconnected feeling when we were dreaming…"
"That's because it's real now…all those years of waiting and yearning and now it's real." Sheldon whispered softly as he cupped Amy's cheek with his palm, wiping away the dampness that appeared on her lashes with his thumb. "Don't cry, my angel…I've got you now." With a gentle nudge, Sheldon moved Amy around on the couch and enfolded her into his arms, completely enveloping her in a faintly talcum scented warm embrace. Amy's arms snuck around his waist to rest in the small of his back and Sheldon's hands rested on Amy's hips as they simply enjoyed the sensation of holding each other close. Sheldon raised his eyes to the door as he noticed Leonard peering around the crack, and without breaking his hold on Amy, Sheldon let his eyes flick over to the bowl on the table. Leonard nodded and reached in with one hand to snag his car keys and cell phone out of the bowl before silently closing the apartment door and backing away.
"What was that?" Amy murmured softly, without lifting her head from where she was nuzzling the crook of Sheldon's neck.
"Oh, just Leonard coming in to collect his keys. I forgot that I still had them in my jacket pocket when we left the coffee shop, they must have had to walk back or they caught a cab." Sheldon settled his cheek back against the silky hair on Amy's crown, closing his eyes as he breathed in the sweet scent of her anti-dandruff shampoo. "You still smell like apples, I once opened all of the bottles of shampoo in the supermarket once trying to find your particular blend…when I found out which one was yours I bought a bottle and kept it in my nightstand drawer. Whenever I was having a hard day and it wasn't close to bedtime, I would crack open the top and just take in the fragrance."
"I keep a canister of baby powder in my bedside cabinet; I sometimes sprinkle a little over the…" Amy's voice trailed off when she realised that she was about to reveal one of her innermost secrets, Sheldon stopped rubbing his cheek against her hair and leant back a little.
"You sprinkle baby powder over what exactly?" Sheldon grinned faintly at the rosy hue that highlighted Amy's cheeks and she coughed a little to clear her throat.
"Would you believe me if I said the inside of my shoe?"
"Not really…but if you don't want to tell me that's fine." Sheldon pulled away slightly and Amy let out a little murmur of distress, snuggling closer to his body and pressing a soft kiss against his chin.
"Alright, alright! Whenever I'm lonely…I sprinkle a little talc over the cuddly Yoda that I keep in my bedroom and I snuggle up to it as I pretend that it's you…Go ahead and laugh, I know that you want to." Amy buried her head against Sheldon's chest, fully expecting him to break out into a chuckle at any second. To her surprise, Sheldon simply cuddled her closer and let out a sigh.
"As it appears to be confession time…I keep the 'Little House on the Prairie' DVD box set in my room, I watch a few episodes whenever Leonard stays over at Penny's or is out with the guys for the night."
"I've got the 'Next Generation' and complete 'Star Wars' DVD box sets; I even went out and bought the 'prequel' trilogy although that was a costly mistake…you could have warned me that they were pretty awful."
"How is 'Amy, don't ever go and see 'The Phantom Menace'' not a warning? Honestly, woman you'd have thought you'd have learnt your lesson after lining up 'Babylon 5' in your Netflix queue." Sheldon clucked his tongue in disapproval and Amy poked her finger in his ribs lightly.
"I admit that was pretty bad, but I still wanted to watch the whole prequel thing; I quite liked the last one, I thought it fitted quite well with the original…how Vader started off with the best intentions but just placed his trust in the wrong person. I bought the rest because I wanted to feel connected to you…they were shows that you enjoyed and they became my guilty pleasure."
"Have you seen any of the other 'Star Trek' spin offs?" Sheldon enquired, rubbing the spot where Amy had jabbed him and loosening his hold of her slightly.
"Hmm…a few 'Deep Space 9' seasons, but not all of them; I quite enjoyed 'Voyager' but couldn't quite get to grips with the one with the guy from 'Quantum Leap'."
"Scott Bakula." Sheldon filled in helpfully and Amy nodded. "The spin off in question was the ill-fated 'Enterprise', a prequel focusing on Captain Jonathon Archer and his crew about fifty years before James Kirk took the helm."
"Yeah, I watched the first couple of episodes but it just didn't capture my attention like TOS or TNG."
"Ooh, you're even using the right abbreviations…" Sheldon clapped his hands together gleefully and Amy giggled as she executed a mock curtsey.
"Thank you, kind sir."
"You're very welcome." Sheldon bowed over his hand and they chuckled softly as they clasped hands again. "I've been a very poor host and haven't even offered you a beverage. Tea?" Amy nodded enthusiastically and when Sheldon rose up from the couch, followed him over to the kitchen area. He glanced behind him and grinned. "I'm not going to disappear, you're sticking to me like you're my shadow or something."
"Sorry…I guess I'm just afraid that this is all just another dream and I'm going to wake up alone in my apartment and you'll be gone." Amy's tone was so full of doubt and fear that Sheldon set the kettle that he had been in the process of filling up, back down onto the counter and held out his hand to Amy.
"Come here you silly thing." He wiggled his fingers and Amy gave him a slightly doubtful glance but moved forward anyway. Sheldon immediately wrapped his arms back around his waist and lowered his head to press a brief kiss against her soft lips. "Is that real enough for you?" He murmured against her lips and felt Amy smile against his mouth as she kissed him in return.
"Maybe you'd better do it again, just to corroborate your findings." Amy whispered softly and this time it was Sheldon that grinned as he placed a series of brief pecks along her mouth.
"Well…I do have a tendency to perform things in a multiple of three…" Sheldon hummed slightly as he placed his mouth firmly over Amy's, nudging her lips apart and tasting her warm minty breath on his tongue. Her tongue slipped out to slide against his, and they started a slow game of advance and retreat as their mouths locked together as they sank deeper into the kiss. Sheldon reluctantly broke the kiss when he felt his lungs burning in desperate need for air, his hands continuously roving over Amy's back not wanting to break their connection completely.
"Wow…that was some first kiss." Amy wheezed out, her head collapsing against Sheldon's upper chest as she too struggled to breathe.
"That was more like our eighth or ninth…" Sheldon replied huskily as his hands finally settled on the curve of Amy's hips, resting comfortably against the waistband of her thick, denim skirt. Amy glanced up into his warm, blue gaze and smiled softly as she raised her hand to cup his cheek.
"That was the first one that really counted…all of the others were just pale imitations compared to the real thing." Sheldon turned his face into her hand and pressed a soft kiss to her palm, closing his eyes as he relished the feel of her in his arms.
"Amy…"
"Yes?" Amy closed her own eyes as she snuggled into Sheldon's warm embrace, humming quietly under her breath as his hands started roaming around her lower back and waiting hopefully for them to drop just a few centimetres…
"Would you like to see my room?"