Epilogue Part 3 The Plague

A/N: It's over. Sequel? ummmmmmmmm maybe.

thanks for reading and commenting

Reparata


Cooper Residence
Mackinaw Island

"Sheldon, are you ready to go, honey?" Penny wore what was pretty much her standard uniform – jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. Someday she'd go scrounging for girly clothes but she hadn't needed any clothes until today. She and her husband (she loved that word) had spent almost all their time together naked and doing lewd and lascivious things that had brought both of them pleasure and bonded them as a couple once again.

"I suppose so. Penny, your father appears to be disappointed in me for some reason. Do you have any idea what I've done to upset him?"

Penny did. She and her father had argued bitterly about Sheldon's future role in the colony and it had driven another wedge between father and daughter. Her mother arranged this dinner to try and get them comfortable with each other again.

"Nope," she lied. Yes, she lied to her husband but she didn't want to get into it right then and now. There would be time enough in the future.

Sheldon sighed as if burdened by the weight of the world and together they walked over to the Ford household.


Dinner was tense. Three of the four eating spaghetti with Ragu spaghetti sauce kept looking sideways at the others until finally Sheldon could tolerate the nausea-inducing silent confrontations no more.

"There is tension here that wasn't here when I left. Has my return created a problem between you? If so, I have several options to restore harmony."

Penny dropped her fork onto her plate and reached across the small table and grabbed both Sheldon's hands in hers and looked to be on the verge of tears.

"You listen to me, Sheldon Cooper. The only option I'll even consider is the one where you and I spend the rest of our days and nights together, wherever we are. Understand me, Moon Pie?"

Sheldon looked down at their hands, his so much bigger and hers so strong and yet still feminine. She knew about his horrible nightmares and that's why she'd stress 'days and nights' in her comments.

He looked up at her and said the only thing that was on his mind at the specific moment in time.

"I'll always love you, Penny, no matter where I am." He hesitated and then slowly pulled his hands from hers and looked at his father-in-law.

"The options are that Penny and I can leave here and never return and thus I will no longer be inflicting myself on you; that Penny and I can leave the island and find another group of survivors with which to join; and finally, you can simply tell me why this tension exists and how you feel it can best be dealt with."

Wyatt's lip curled up and he threw his napkin down on his plate and left the table. Penny's mom just shook her head and continued eating, making comments about things on the island and asking Penny questions that she knew Sheldon would feel bound to respond to also.

She finally set her own fork down and steepled her fingers and sighed. "Sheldon, he wanted you to resume running things. He doesn't like being 'in charge' and would much prefer that you took back responsibility for planning just as you did before we arrived here on Mackinaw Island."

"But I wasn't 'running things"! I simply followed the group's consensus on matters and did what was necessary to achieve our goal and I'm ashamed of many of the things that were done but I've come to see the wisdom of the 3-fingers in taking an action that runs contrary to the rules of science, law or society."

Jenny hid her smile behind her steepled fingertips as she listened to her daughter's husband eloquently make his case. He was truly different and she wondered if her daughter knew just how different her life was going to be with such a man in it?

"Shel, English language version, please?"

He smiled and nodded. 'Of course. I keep forgetting that they can't follow my thought processes to the inevitable end point where logic drives man's actions.'

He made a fist and raised one finger – "Is it good? Does the act fall within acceptable parameters of Man's moral code."

He raised a second finger, the middle one that doubled as the 'bird', and Penny had to giggle but stifled it when she saw Sheldon's eyes narrow. 'Moon Pie hates being interrupted.'

"Second, is it right? Meaning is it the correct decision to be made in the absence of a positive response to the first query."

"Third, is it necessary? I have had to make too many decisions that were neither moral nor correct but were necessary – and I'm weary of it. It drags at something I feel my mother would call my 'soul'. And I'm so tired of it. All I want is to go back to the way things were before the Chocker but since that's impossible without a major breakthrough in tachyon physics, then I simply want to live my life in peace with my best friend, lover and soul mate."

Penny had known things were bad from the horrible turmoil she'd seen in Sheldon's eyes when she'd awakened him from a nightmare but never had she imagined that he was in such emotional pain.

'I know now how hard it was for him to leave me and go off in search of his sister. I can see him staring at that damned third finger and cringing but still sucking it up and moving on. They can't expect more of him than he's capable of giving. I won't allow it.'

Jenny had the decency to look away when she saw how tear-filled Sheldon's eyes had become. She and Wyatt had discussed the colony's need for a strong central figure that would not allow emotion to overrule common sense in making critical decisions but never had they considered what it would cost.

She reached over and put her hand over his and said softly, "Wyatt was diagnosed with liver cancer just when the Choker hit and things fell apart. He's dying and he's afraid that without a strong and resolute figure head, the colony will lose it's direction and fragment into special interest groups, each with its own agenda."

She looked at her daughter, the shock and sadness on her face, the way she was looking at the door her dad had left by…she nodded and Penny got up and ran after her dad.

"Sheldon, you don't have to be The Man. All you have to do is execute the policies and decisions of the group of people you yourself created to 'think' for the convoy, then the expedition, and finally 'the Colonists'. Without your presence, nothing will get done. Things will decay and slowly slide into anarchy."

Sheldon looked over at Jenny and nodded. "It's necessary. I will comply."


He held his wife while she cried herself to sleep. His Meemaw and mother were dead, yes, but he hadn't had to sit and watch the slow process of death taking a loved one away.

"Penny," he whispered to his sleeping wife, "I will make him proud."


Two Months Later

The coach that had seemed so roomy when he'd first set eyes on it now seemed cramped and suffocating. Perhaps it was the fact that 10 people were crowded into it or maybe the fact that he was balking at implementing the group's decision.

Penny sat beside him, her hand resting palm down on his thigh to keep him from bouncing it nervously. Periodically she'd draw little circles on it with the tips of her fingers and she liked it when his breath would hitch.

"Sheldon, it has to be done. Set a precedent. He was found guilty because of the evidence and he sat there, smirking, all during the trial. We have no facilities for housing criminals and the female population needs to be shown that this type of behavior will not be tolerated in our society."

Rape. It was such a brutal sounding word and so appropriate for the act. Charles Dixon had raped Catherine Fulmer while both were on a scrounging mission and the bastard had bragged about it – but he maintained it was consensual sex.

The broken nose and torn lips and other bruises screamed otherwise. The verdict had been swift: guilty.

"You all agree with the punishment?" Sheldon asked. It was brutal but not as brutal as rape. They had discussed and debated the punishment until finally they reached a consensus.

"Yes, Sheldon. Banishment to the Door Peninsula above the Canal. Food and water for three days and a penknife. Let him make his own way through life. Banishment." Winkle had argued for castration and a period of incarceration in Fort Washington but the others finally wore her down and she capitulated.

The crowd outside waited patiently while the 'Committee' determined a punishment. This was the first such crime that wasn't petty theft, public drunkenness or something so ordinary that isolation for a period of time from the community didn't have the desired effect.

Sheldon nodded to the group and then stood and walked down out of the coach. They filed out and stood behind him in a small semi-circle. Charles Dixon stood in handcuffs, an armed colonist on either side holding his arms.

"A complaint was filed. An investigation was made and it was determined that a crime had been committed. A trial was held and the accused was represented by competent council and based on the evidence presented, was found guilty of Rape by a jury of his fellow colonists."

"Charles Dixon, do you have anything to say before sentence is pronounced?"

"Yeah, ya bunch a losers." He glared at Sheldon and then laughed. "Go ahead, throw me out. I'll survive and there are other women out there – and maybe someday I'll come back – with friends and we'll - "

He saw that irritating smirk again. It reminded him of someone he couldn't quite place.

Sheldon interrupted him. "The decision of the Committee is that you be banished for life." There was a murmuring of dissent among some of the colonists but no one spoke up. Dixon just smirked.

'Sheep. They are like sheep. How long before the human wolves that roam around the Wilderness in packs confront the sheep? They need a cold dose of reality. They need to see a demonstration of raw power and how lucky they are that it's benign and in their own interest.'

Penny saw his fingers move, tapping his palm one at a time. One, two, three.

Penny started to say something to Leslie but she was too late.

Sheldon drew his 9mm pistol and shot Charles Dixon in the forehead.

"I don't agree."

There were a few gasps but overall not much of a reaction at all. Perhaps they were in shock or stunned at his actions. He turned his back on colonists and faced the shocked committee and a few of their 'hangers on' and said, "A wise woman once told me to never leave an enemy in my rear. From this moment on any scrounging party will be twice the size and fully armed. No more turning the other cheek."

Wyatt had witnessed the entire event and felt a moment of guilt but it was crushed by the pride he felt in Sheldon Cooper.

'Leonard would have voted for a year or so in the lighthouse. Well, Slugger always said she liked the bad boys. Looks like she married herself the badest boy of all.'


A/N: That's it. I may write a sequel but I have one project in limbo right now (Tsunami Aftermath) and a really whacko quasi-romantic parody that will probably languish on my hard drive until the cows inherit Burger King.

Thanks for reading my tripe. Your reviews were entertaining and very informative and some of you are down right brilliant in your recognition of the greatness of my prose (self-effacing comments).