Monday morning, things appeared back to normal. Howard and Bernadette were walking through the halls together hand and hand, Leonard and Penny were exchanging playful banter, and Sheldon and Amy were… Sheldon and Amy. He stood next to her by the lockers, making sure to keep himself a foot back from her airborne germs.

"Sheldon…" Amy said. "I'm not contagious anymore. Besides, it's just a cold. I sound worse than I am."

"O' contraire Amy. You were not formally diagnosed. For all we know, you have a mutation of some airborne illness waiting to prey on its next victim."

She shot him a dirty look. "Yes, that's definitely it."

He sighed and hung his coat in his locker. Amy noticed that he looked a bit off. "Are you okay, Sheldon?"

"So far." He said. But she was not convinced.

"How was your weekend?"

Sheldon closed his locker. "Alright. I completed some menial homework assignments, caught up on some television shows, got accepted to a university…"

"Wait what? What school?" She asked.

"Stanford. They actually have quite the theoretical physics department."

Amy smiled. "Wow, Sheldon, congratulations. That's fantastic!"

He nodded in agreement. "Yes, I suppose."

"Do you not want to go there are something?"

He paused. "Well, to be quite frank, I haven't decided yet. Assuming I'm granted admission to all the universities I applied to, and let's be honest, it's almost a given, there are a number of different options which will benefit me greatly."

She nodded. "Perhaps. Where else are you considering?"

"Well, my mother would like me to attend CalTech for proximity purposes."

"Not to mention they have one of the best student/teacher ratios in the country."

He did a double take at Amy. "And that's supposed to convince me? You know how I feel about human interaction."

"Fair enough, continue." She replied.

"Well, I'm also waiting on Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne."

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Ecole what?"

He smiled derisively. "It's one of the top research institutions in Switzerland."

Amy felt her stomach flip. "Switzerland? I had no idea you were thinking about leaving the country next year."

"Yes well, my mother has forbade it for the time being. But I will change her mind if need be. My goal is to work with leading researchers on the CERN Supercollider."

"Oh."

He didn't understand Amy's reaction. "Is something wrong?"

"Um, no. It's fine. Well, I hope thinks work out for you." She said as she started to walk toward class.

He tried to keep up with her. "Thank you. If you're also concerned about my safety abroad, perhaps I'll forward you the PowerPoint presentation I intend to make for my mother."

"Great." She said as she turned into her classroom. Sheldon wasn't terribly good at reading emotions, but he knew Amy was upset.

"With the way these women folk are reacting, I better make this PowerPoint a doozy…"

Leonard sat In History class with his friends, waiting for the teacher to start. Before long, the teacher divvied them up into their project teams.

Michelle came over to Leonard and sat down. "Hey there, did you start your half of the assignment yet?"

He smiled. "Hello, and no, I have not."

She smiled with a bit of a giggle. "No biggie. Neither did I. Maybe we should go through our notes and make an outline together for the report."

"Okay, sure."

After working together for a few minutes, Michelle got distracted. "So, you're still going out with Penny?"

He looked up from his notebook. "Uh, yeah. Still together. You know Penny?"

Michelle just gave Leonard a look. "I think everyone does. Not that it's a bad thing. I mean, we used to be sort of friendly in middle school. But you know, times change."

Leonard smiled and nodded. She continued talking. "So I guess that means you're bringing her to the homecoming dance."

"As far as I know, we're going." He replied. "Why?"

"Just asking. It should be fun. Tell her good luck with the homecoming queen race. Hope you guys actually get to spend some time together at the dance with everything going on."

He stopped working on the project. "Wait, homecoming queen? They still do that?"

She smirked. "Well yeah. They posted a list of the nominees in the cafeteria. There are like 10 different girls up for it. Which is nowhere near as bad as the guys up for homecoming king. Most of them are complete douchebags."

Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Penny never mentioned anything about this… So what happens, we vote for someone?"

"Yeah, I think they'll pass out little ballot things in homeroom next week. Then whoever wins has to do all this stuff at the football game and dance with the king at the actual dance, take pictures, etc… You know how it works. I don't think they've changed anything in years."

"Oh."

Michelle giggled. "Aw, it's so cute how you don't know anything about this stuff."

But Leonard lost focus. He suddenly became concerned with Penny's involvement in the popularity competition.

Michelle continued. "Anyway, I'll be there with some of my friends. If you get bored or anything, come find me. I'll save you a dance if Penny wins."

Leonard smiled at her. "Okay thanks."

What a nice girl.

Leonard waited until lunch to ask Penny about homecoming. She came to the table with Bernadette, laughing about some sort of gossip.

He interrupted her. "Hi Penny. So, are you looking forward to homecoming?"

She was completely confused by Leonard's sudden interest in the event. "Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, I'm sure it'll be fun. Dances usually are."

"Anything specific you're looking forward to?" He asked with innuendo.

Bernadette chimed in before Penny could answer. "I think he's implying that he knows about the homecoming queen race."

Penny looked a bit uncomfortable and laughed. "Oh yeah, you know how these little popularity things work. Someone nominated me and then people vote. It's no big deal. Trust me, I won't win. Not after I stopped hanging out with everyone."

Leonard softened his expression. "Why not? I don't think your old social group is large enough to sway anything."

Penny rolled her eyes. "Thanks, but two of them are running as well. Trisha AND Lisa are up for it. Not to mention some senior girls. It's no big deal, I'm not really interested in it anyway. I just have to show up in a dress and walk around when they tell me to."

Raj leaned forward. "For what it's worth, I think you have quite a shot. You're much prettier than your old friends."

She gushed. "Aw, thank you Raj. But I'm really not worried about it."

Amy leaned toward Penny. "Don't worry. I'll vote for you, bestie. With your ravishing good looks and delicate blonde locks, the rest of the nominees will be practically transparent to the rest of the student body."

Bernadette leaned forward. "Besides, most people still like you. Who cares what those losers think. And for all we know, Trisha might be at home throwing up or something instead."

Penny quickly smacked Bernadette in the arm as the group all exchanged awkward glances. Except for Sheldon, who seemed to miss out on the gossip. "Can we please refrain from speaking about regurgitation during meal times?"

Everyone else remained quiet for a minute. Penny folded her arms and looked at the group. "Okay, so we're all privy to the same gossip, it seems."

Amy sighed. "This is getting ridiculous. As much as we all claim not to care about said members of Penny's ex-social group, we're clearly preoccupied with this notion of gestation. Perhaps I should march right over there and get the truth from her."

Penny's eyes widened. "What?! Are you crazy? If it's not true, she'll think I'm responsible for spreading the rumor and then she'll get her groupies to retaliate on our asses."

Amy ignored Penny's plea. "This needs to end. I'll return shortly." She said as she stood up and marched across the cafeteria. Penny and Bernadette sunk in their chairs as Sheldon continued to look confused.

"Would someone care to fill me in on the reason for your continued obsession with lesser minds?"

The boys just fiddled with their fingers and looked down as Penny and Bernadette looked at each other.

Sheldon got exasperated. "Fine. Then perhaps we should change the topic of conversation to something more riveting. Like trains. Ooooh can we talk about trains?!"

Penny decided to speak to Leonard. "Hey wait a minute, how did you hear about homecoming queen anyway?"

He looked up at her. "There's a list posted on the message board."

"Oh don't give me that. You didn't even know we had one until last week."

"Well, this girl in our History class told me about it. She wished you good luck too!"

Penny smirked. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Michelle. She said she knew you in middle school."

She froze. "Michelle Bennett?"

"Yeah, she seems nice. And she really did wish you good luck."

Bernadette laughed a bit as Penny looked annoyed. "Are you kidding me? She's seriously talking to you?"

Leonard sat up straighter. "Hey, why is that so hard to believe? I'm a nice guy."

Penny folded her arms. "Yeah well, we stopped being friends because she kept trying to steal my boyfriends. Like take this, when I was in the eighth grade, she made out with my ex-boyfriend just two months after we broke up. And then at our eighth grade dinner dance, I went with Erik Wescott. And who decides to sit on the other side of him at the table? Michelle. Luckily for me, he wasn't interested in her, but still. It's just ridiculous."

He laughed. "You're jealous."

"I'm not jealous. She just annoys the crap out of me. Prepare to have her trying to flirt with you and whatnot."

Howard made a suggestive face. "What kind of 'whatnot?'"

As always, Bernadette jabbed him with her elbow. Raj leaned over and whispered to Howard, causing him to look over at Trisha's table. "Guys, Amy and Trisha are missing."

They all turned to validate Howard's claim. Leonard scrunched his forehead. "Wonder where they went."

In the hallway, Trisha stood against the lockers with her arms folded. "Is there a problem?"

Amy nodded. "I'm not entirely sure. There appears to be a rumor circulating about you."

She rolled her eyes. "What else is new? It's high school."

"Nonetheless, I wanted to notify you of said rumor and inquire about its validity."

Trisha raised an eyebrow. "Well, spill. What is it?"

"Are you with child?"

"What?"

Amy took a deep breath. "Simply put, are you pregnant?"

Trisha's eyes widened and her pulse quickened. "Wait what?! People think I'm pregnant? This isn't because I was texting Penny that day, right? I'll kill her if she read into that."

"You failed to answer my question."

"Look, not that it's anyone's business, but no. I'm not pregnant."

Amy nodded. "Very well. I assumed such."

Before she went back into the cafeteria, Trisha stopped her. "Can you tell me where you heard that though?"

"Why?"

"Because… I thought I was, you know, a little while ago…"

"Really?" Amy asked.

"Yeah… It's kind of the real reason I asked Eddie to be my boyfriend suddenly. I just didn't tell him why. And people assumed it was about Penny so I sort of ran with that."

Amy folded her arms. "And that wasn't fair to Penny."

"I know! But I was sort of freaking out. Look, I'm sorry you got put in the middle of this whole thing. But apparently, there's a snitch in my own group of friends. Thanks for actually asking me."

"No problem. Have a good day." She said as she rejoined her friends in the cafeteria.