What is insanity, anyway? Is it when you scream and everyone else whispers, or is it when you fight for what you know is right even when everyone else thinks you're wrong? Anonymous
CalTech
Sheldon returned to work and stopped by Dr. Gabelhauser's office first to discuss his latest paper and also to advise him of his vacation plans for around the time of the baby's birth. He figured if he was going to have to be a father and an adult, he'd need to play office politics. He'd already been to HR so this meeting was more in the way of ass-kissing.
Eric seemed excited about something and smiled broadly, displaying near-perfect teeth. He almost hugged Sheldon who backed up against the door and tucked his chin into his chest to protect his neck.
No more vampire movies for a while. Penny will just have to live without Vampire Diaries and True Blood.
"Doctor Cooper, I'm so glad to see you! The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has just announced the list of candidates being considered for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Congratulations, Dr. Cooper! I sincerely believe that you will be this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics."
Sheldon's eyes glazed over and he felt faint.
"Your recent paper has caused quite a stir and your self-styled peer review group has been sending copies of your paper to almost everyone on the Committee. Why, Leslie Winkle has been positively raving about the breakthrough theorems you've posited to - "
"I got married and I need to change the beneficiaries on my insurance and then schedule a vacation for when the baby comes. That's why I'm here, Dr. Gabelhauser. Somehow the Nobel doesn't seem quite like the Holy Grail it once did."
CalTech
Sheldon's Office
It had been 27 days since he'd been here and he realized that he hadn't missed it one bit. He spent an hour cleaning up the dust and making sure it was as pristine as he'd left it. Sheldon booted up his desktop computer and downloaded the contents of his paper into his archives on the University's intranet and then opened up his email browser.
He quickly answered those from people he actually respected or liked and dumped the rest into trash. He hadn't opened up the peer review responses because he didn't want to deal with their comments. Six months ago he would be insufferably proud and arrogant but like he'd told Gabelhauser, his priorities had changed.
His stomach growled and he remembered he hadn't eaten breakfast because Penny had been sick again and his appetite always waned when his wife was sick. He'd have to research 'shared pregnancy symptoms'.
The faculty cafeteria wasn't crowded and for that Sheldon was very grateful. Penny had nagged and nagged at him until he agreed to wear his gray suit and the cobalt blue tie she made him buy and a crisply starched white shirt. She said it made him look more like a grownup. Gabelhauser had muttered the exact same thing.
He walked through the line quickly and then found a seat in a corner and sat down and started eating his BLT on wheat and occasionally sipping his iced tea.
"Well, looks who's back from vacation! Hello, Dr. Not-So-Dumbass-After-All. Your paper was cogent, offered a new paradigm for examining gravity and – brilliant. Whoo! Now that I've got that off my chest, I can go back to being your worst nightmare."
"Your criticisms were most helpful, Leslie. I found myself rethinking conclusions and approaching things from a slightly different aspect on more than one occasion as a result of your comments."
"Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Sheldon?" Winkle was deathly serious. She didn't recognize this guy who said he was Sheldon Cooper but certainly didn't dress or behave like the Sheldon Cooper she'd been harassing since shortly after they'd arrived together at CalTech.
"I assure you, Leslie, that I am in fact Sheldon Lee Cooper. The fact that I offered sincere thanks for your criticisms should hardly cause such crude language in this, a bastion of academic endeavors."
Leslie had taken in the haircut, suit, shirt and tie and…
"Dr. Cooper, is there something you might like to share with the class? Like what is the underlying reason for this sudden burst of normalcy on your part?"
"There has been a huge fundamental paradigm shift in my worldview and in other areas. Leslie, for years I tried to make sense of a world that I found chaotic and pointless. I tried to fit in, the proverbial square peg in the round hole, if you will allow a weak but descriptive analogy. And it didn't work! But now, I have found my square hole and I suppose I'm happy…perhaps content is a better word – and that's what you may be perceiving."
"Wow! So tell me about these shifts."
"I bought a house, got married and am soon to become a father. Those changes formed the template for everything that followed."
"M-Married? To whom? And she's pregnant already?"
"To Penny Larson and yes, she's pregnant 'already' although it's my child in her womb. I have heard its heartbeat and I've never heard a more beautiful sound, Leslie."
"I need to sit down. Is it hot in here? I feel faint. You're really Sheldon Cooper, right? Not some evil clone he ginned up in his garage?"
"I am he. He is me. No clones. No pods decaying under my bed as Leonard once theorized. I'm just…happy, Leslie."
She noted that he kept calling her Leslie as opposed to Winkle or Dr. Winkle and that knocked her off her stride even more. He never called her anything but –
"Leslie, would a cold compress on the back of your neck help? Or a bottle of cold water? You do look paler than usual."
"No, Sheldon, I just need to wrap my head around this. It is a lot of data to assimilate at one time. I think my brain is in overload mode, that's all."
"I suppose that can happen – the brain overload – but surely someone as intelligent as you can cope without falling apart, Leslie."
"Shelly, do you ever think back to – "
"No, Leslie. I don't. I learned from it, though. It was a life lesson I took to heart. You must excuse me. Barry Kripke is here and I cannot abide his presence."
"Yeah, I heard he sicced the cops on you for beating the crap out of him. I'm sure he deserved it, Sheldon. He does look funny though with his nose in that metal t-frame and bandages. You sure did a number on him."
"Leslie, I did no such thing and I'll thank you to stifle any misconceptions others may have regarding my participation in any assault on Kripke or anyone else for that matter. I did no such thing. I am incapable of it. Violence is the last option for a thinking person and I am, after all, Homo Novus."
Winkle watched Sheldon Cooper carefully for the telltale signs that he was lying. She knew that he couldn't lie without great effort and that effort manifested itself in a series of twitches and rapid eye blinks but she saw no such signs and she relaxed, surprised at the slight feeling of disappointment she felt.
She wanted him to have lied; she wanted him to be more aggressive and domineering like before but saw no signs of it. He was back to being 'submissive Sheldon'.
Barry Kripke walked into the faculty cafeteria, saw Sheldon sitting with Leslie Winkle and blanched. He turned on his heel and headed for the vending machines in the corridor. The cops didn't believe him but he knew what he'd seen and he remembered exactly what Cooper had said to him in that dark alley.
'If I see you so much as look at her again, you may not survive our next encounter.'
"Hey! Look who's here!" Leonard and Raj walked into the cafeteria and sat down, Raj next to Sheldon and Leonard next to Winkle. The look he gave Winkle was so obviously one of appraisal that Sheldon winked at Winkle when she glared at Leonard.
"Hofstadter, that ship has sailed. Put your eyes back into their sockets, hobbit-boy, and graze on your salad. Hello, Raj. Just nod. I know you're glad to see me."
Winkle loved to jag Rajeesh Koothrappalli about his inability to speak with her unless he had alcohol in his system. She found it endearing and refreshing that at least one of the three mouseketeers listened to her.
"Sheldon and I were just discussing Kripke's unfortunate interface with someone's angry fists. Has Kripke said anything to either of you about it? I'd blow the guy who knocked him on his rude ass."
Leonard inhaled a bacon bit and began to hack up a lung while Raj was trying to swallow a mouthful of Mountain Dew without embarrassing himself. Sheldon merely gave her that quiet and secret smile that he gave when he knew something that no one else did.
'No way! Not Dr. Dumbass! But I know that smile. He did! And somehow he's learned to lie…'
"So, Leonard, fill me in on the goings on of the Wandering Wolowitz. How long will he be gone? Bernadette must be torn between pride and terror. Have you seen her since the house warming?"
"He's in Houston undergoing some fittings for his EVA suit and training in their antigravity tanks and Bernadette told me he was having a great time," Raj explained.
"How's Penny, Sheldon?" Leonard asked the obvious question. His mother was very interested in how Sheldon was adapting to marriage and impending parenthood.
"She's still suffering from the occasional bout of morning sickness but it's fading fast. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat and saw an ultrasound of her. Penny is amazed that something so tiny can be doing jumping jacks on her bladder."
"So it's a girl?" Winkle asked Sheldon. He looked so happy and she couldn't ever remember seeing the smile he had on his face back in the day.
"I'm hoping for a girl but will be satisfied with a healthy baby. The sonogram didn't yield any hint of its sex for us." It would appear that the fetus is unusually modest.
"Unlike its mother…" Leonard muttered under his breath.
"Leonard, speak like that again about Penny in my presence and I will feed you to the sharks at the City Aquarium." Leonard looked guilty for a moment while Raj just laughed and then made a joke and began lecturing Leonard on propriety.
"Sheldon, you would be arrested immediately for cruelty to animals. Leonard, you should show respect for the mother of his child. You did not speak of her in such a way when the two of you were together, did you? No. So do not speak ill of Penny now. Your mother would hardly find fault in Sheldon's actions if he were to feed you to the sharks – although he never would, would you, Sheldon?"
There was a long and pregnant silence while Sheldon once again attempted to blow up Leonard's head with the power of his incredible intellect.
"Sheldon? You wouldn't feed Leonard to the sharks, would you, my friend?" Leonard and Sheldon had locked gazes and Leonard finally blinked and apologized.
"Of course not, Raj," and he smiled at his Indian associate.
"Whew. After what happened to poor Barry Kripke, I wasn't sure," said Raj.
"I'd feed him to the piranhas." He didn't smile that time and Winkle suddenly felt faint again from the sudden rush of heat that seemed to center in her nether regions and set fire to her loins.
'Submissive my ass! He's been suppressing it all this time but something's happened to bring it out again. If Leonard disappears…should I go to the police?'