"Hey guys! I hope you don't mind us coming over too early, but Raj and I finished earlier than expected due to someone letting off a fire alarm at the University and we picked Bernie up on the way."
"No prizes for guessing who set the alarm off in the first place." Bernadette groused lightly as she walked into the kitchen and set a bottle of red wine down on the counter. She looked over to see Sheldon's new look and winked at him. "Looking good, Sheldon."
"Amy…" Sheldon turned his puppy dog eyes on Amy and she took his hand to lead him into the bathroom.
"Excuse us for a moment, Sheldon wants me to help him shave. Bernie, could you slide the ribs in for me please? They're resting in a pan at the bottom of the fridge, the oven's set really low and they will take a while to cook."
"Sure, anything else I can help with?" Bernadette asked as Sheldon started to tug Amy down the corridor.
"Umm, you might want to see how Penny's getting on in the laundry room? She's washing some table linen for me and I'm not entirely sure if she knows how the iron works. Okay, Sheldon…I'm coming!" Amy smiled apologetically and hurried along to catch up with her anxious boyfriend. They slipped into the bathroom and soon the sound of Sheldon's electric shaver could be heard buzzing from inside. Bernadette pulled the ribs out of the fridge and slid them into the oven. She turned around and noticed the half-finished onion rings sitting on the cutting board.
"Raj, Howard – give Leonard a hand with whatever he's trying to do over there. Leonard, you wanna fill me in on what's going on? Where's your desk, and what's with the table linen? Spill it, buster!" Bernadette pulled on another pair of latex gloves, letting each one fall into place with a little snap. Leonard swallowed hard, the sound bringing up memories of years of painful doctor's visits before they finally diagnosed his lactose intolerance.
"Umm…my desk is in pieces over at Penny's. Amy wants us all to sit at tables tonight, which is why Sheldon's desk has been turned around and the couch needs to be pushed back against the bookcase. She came up with the brilliant idea of using folding tables; that way we can all sit together but Sheldon doesn't have to look at them afterwards. And…she's moving in…Sheldon no longer wishes for her not to be classed as his roommate." Leonard spilled out everything he had learnt that day and took a quick puff from his inhaler when he finally ran out of air.
"That poor girl…does she even know what she's letting herself in for?" Howard remarked quietly as he and Raj helped Leonard shift the sofa back a few inches.
"I think she knows…put it like this, when I arrived this morning they weren't even dressed; and Amy was coming out of Sheldon's bedroom."
"Are you sure she wasn't just inside checking he was still alive?"
"Pretty sure, especially when she remarked that he had also asked if she would no longer object if they didn't not share the same bed." Leonard smiled in recollection, whereas Raj, Bernadette and Howard wore the same puzzled expression.
"That's a whole lot of double negatives in there, Leonard." Bernadette remarked, trying to puzzle out the strange turn of phrase. It was Raj that figured it out first and he let out a breathy sigh of delight.
"Oh my, that is so romantic! Sheldon asked her to move in with him; just like Penny and Leonard." Raj emphasised the word 'move' and Howard finally caught on.
"That dirty dog! How long do you think it's been going on for?"
"Not very long…I don't think they've progressed any further than actually sharing the bed, purely for sleeping. They seem quite comfortable around each other though, you all saw how they were acting last night; it was even more apparent today, now that everything's sorted. Amy started moving some of her things over today, it's just the heavy stuff that is left now. She mentioned something about hiring a van and a couple of men to move it over for her." Leonard plopped himself down on the couch and raised his feet up onto the coffee table that Raj had moved over.
"What's left to bring?" Howard asked as he moved the over-sized armchair nearer the couch, assisted by Raj.
"Um…her couch, bed, a couple of bookcases and one kick ass desk. I think her bed's going into the storage unit in Glendale, but the other bits are coming here. I need to ask her whether she can fit my old bed in there as well; if not I need to try and sell it before her couch gets here. She told Sheldon that he can have the spare room as his bat cave – her couch, his desk and a couple of book cases are going in there; along with the television from his room that will be permanently hooked up to one of his old gaming systems."
"Don't get any ideas, Howard." Bernadette raised the vegetable knife and waved it in warning. "We don't have a spare room and if we did, it certainly wouldn't be used to house all of your toys!"
"I guess some fella's just have all the luck." Howard muttered to Raj, "Not only can she cook, but he gets his own Fortress of Solitude as well."
"I know." Raj commiserated, "Still, you can always come over to my place – it's one big Fortress of Solitude now that Emily is working out of town a lot. She's putting in a lot of hours over at a clinic near Hollywood, so it gets very lonely whenever she works away."
"Thanks, Raj." Howard cheered up a little at the thought of having a little gaming time with one of his best friends and looked over to see whether it was okay with his wife. She was smiling and humming under her breath, so everything was looking good.
Sheldon and Amy came back into the living room, Sheldon was once again smooth shaven and Amy nudged him over to the couch while she fetched his pills for him. "Thanks for finishing up the onion rings, Bernadette."
"No problem, Amy…congratulations, Leonard told us that you and Sheldon are finally moving in together." Bernadette slipped off the gloves so that she could give Amy a quick hug, before sending a smile over to Sheldon. He gave her a little quirky smile in return and reached up to accept the medicine and cup of juice held out by Amy. Their fingers brushed briefly as she took the empty glass from him, and their eyes met and held for a long moment before Howard commented on the folding tables stacked up against the counter.
"So, Amy where did all of the tables suddenly appear from? I don't remember seeing any of them at your place before?"
"My aunt Flora left them to me when she passed away last year. She used to hold Canasta tournaments in her old house and was quite the card shark in her day. I've had them in storage ever since then, and I thought they'd make things a little easier over here."
"Speaking of storage, Amy…I was wondering whether you'd have any room in your unit for my old bed? I'll even arrange for the van and guys to move it over the weekend if you can fit it in." Leonard leant forward on the couch and hoped that she had room, he really didn't feel like going through the whole rigmarole of advertising the bed, and knew that Sheldon would hate a bunch of strangers parading through the apartment to view it.
"Sure, it's one of the larger units over near my old apartment so there's plenty of space. My parent's used it for storage before they moved overseas and they paid up front for another three years." Amy smiled over at Leonard and he let out a huge sigh of relief.
"That's great! I'll make some calls now and see if we can get something arranged for tomorrow or Sunday. I'll cover all of the costs upfront and you can consider it my payment towards letting me use your storage."
"Don't be silly, Leonard; I've already told you that the unit is paid up for another three years."
"I insist."
"Well, thank you, I accept your offer." Amy inclined her head graciously and Leonard nodded as he scrolled through his phone looking for a moving company that could shift a small load over the weekend. He stepped out into the hallway to make the calls and came back inside with a wide smile.
"Okay, we're all set. I've got a van booked for tomorrow morning at eleven am. Two guys will come over here and pick up my bed, moving it to the storage unit. One of us will have to follow the guys over there to let them in. They will then head over to Glendale to pick up the rest of Amy's things and then bring it over here; I paid extra to ensure that they carry it all up to here and not just leave it in the lobby."
"Okay, will you be okay following them to the storage unit, Leonard? I will need to head over to my apartment early in the morning to pack up the rest of my desk and kitchen things."
"I can meet you there if you like? I was going to come over here and lend you a hand with the cooking anyway." Bernadette offered with a smile. "I think we've still got some empty cartons left over from over move, so I can bring them along with me."
"That would be great, Sheldon you will need to stay here and supervise the moves with Penny, are you be okay with that?"
"Certainly, I make an admirable supervisor and will be best placed here anyway." Sheldon raised his arm slightly to indicate that he would be of little use anywhere else. "As soon as the bed has gone, I can start organising which books I should transfer over to the bat cave. I know I won't be able to do much without my desk or your bookcases, but I can make a list of the ones I would feel would be most useful." Sheldon sneaked a look over at Leonard who nodded slightly as he realised that Sheldon was thinking about their future possible collaboration.
Penny wandered back into the apartment just as Leonard was about to say something and he lept up to take the neatly ironed pile of linen out of her hands.
"Hey, Penny! Look who arrived a whole three hours early!" He exclaimed as he placed the linen onto the kitchen counter and pulled Penny over to the couch. "Someone, and I'm not naming names –Howard- set the fire alarms off at the university and got let out early. So instead of heading home they all decided to come over here instead, isn't that nice of them?"
"Yeah, a real treat…" Penny muttered sarcastically as she slipped off Leonard's lap and moved over to the middle cushion. "So, what are we talking about? Warlord's of Ka'a? Age of Conan? Star Wars Trek thingy?"
"Actually, we were talking about picking up the rest of Amy's things tomorrow. Leonard has arranged for a van and a couple of men to do the heavy lifting; he will meet them at the storage unit where Amy has offered to store his bed, Bernie is going over to the apartment with Amy to help pack up the rest of her things; so you've picked the winning ticket – you get Sheldon duty." Howard delivered the good news and sat back in his seat, hoping that no one would spot his deliberate exclusion of himself and Raj; he couldn't catch a break as Penny caught him out immediately.
"What are you and Raj going to be doing while everyone else is busy?" Penny asked suspiciously, Sheldon chimed in before they could formulate a reasonable explanation.
"Howard and Raj will be making sure that both the platform area and the bat cave has suitable power supplies and cabling in place to run our laptops; they will then ensure that our networking is in place by running a secure patch through to the university – enabling a secure link is maintained at all times, just in case we ever feel the need to work from home that is."
"That's a lot of work, Sheldon…it's going to take more than just a day to get it all set up." Howard mused from the armchair and Sheldon just gave him a sardonic glance in response. "Well, I guess we could take a look now…we have a couple of hours until dinner is ready anyway; it's not as if we came over expecting vintage video game night or anything." Howard got up from the chair and continued to mumble as he made his way up to the platform and jerked his head over for Raj to join him.
"Amy, those linens are lovely; where did you pick them up?" Penny called over from the couch and Amy looked up from where she was mixing up the batter for the onion rings.
"Pottery barn, or Target…I don't really remember. My mother bought them before they went overseas and then decided that they were too masculine for their new place. I liked the colour so I kept them for myself."
"Do you want me to start setting up the tables now that the furniture has been moved around?" Penny offered, then she and Bernadette flicked the tables open and started moving them into place. Three of the slightly rectangular tables were placed end to end; starting where Leonard's desk used to sit and finishing just before Sheldon's desk. Penny flipped the dark blue tablecloth over the whole length of the joined up tables and smoothed it flat with the palm of her hand. Bernadette set out the white napkins with tiny dark blue piping around the edges at equally spaced intervals and then crossed over to the kitchen to grab a stack of plates from the cupboards.
"Where are the chairs, Ames?" Penny asked with a slight frown. "We didn't leave them behind did we?"
"No, they're still in the trunk of my car." Amy replied, reaching over into her purse and tossing Penny the keys. Penny turned around and tossed the keys over to Leonard.
"There you go, wonder boy; make yourself useful and help me bring the chairs upstairs for Amy."
"Hey! I've been useful all day…tell her, Amy." Leonard whined as he headed toward the door.
"He did help with the bread…and he managed to get the legs to his desk unscrewed; he might not be able to fit it back together again, but at least it's over in your apartment…" Amy agreed with Leonard's statement but neglected to tell Penny that both of their men had forgotten to put the loaves in the oven after the second proving and so she had to throw all of the dough away as it had collapsed into an unusable heap when she'd got back with lunch.
"Okay, I believe you – it doesn't get you out of helping me up the stairs with the chairs though." Penny kissed Leonard's cheek as she walked over to meet him at the door, she slipped her hand into his and tugged him out into the hallway. She grinned cheekily at him and started leading him down the stairs.