"Hi, Sheldon. This is unexpected," Amy said into her phone about two weeks after Sheldon left on his train trip.
"I know you're at work," stated Sheldon. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."
Amy shook her head to herself, "No, I've got time to talk. Is everything okay? Where are you now?"
"The train just stopped in San Luis Obispo. It arrives in Burbank at eight-thirty. I wanted to let you know that I'll be home tonight and I was hoping we could talk tomorrow. I understand if you're angry with me for leaving and don't want to see me right away."
"Do you want me to pick you up from the train station? It's Thursday, so my dad is planning on watching Max. I hadn't told my parents about you leaving. I was going to go to the bookstore and get some coffee by myself, but I can pick you up instead," offered Amy.
Sheldon smiled, knowing that Amy's offer to pick him up meant she didn't completely hate him for leaving. "I would appreciate that since you're offering. I should probably go. We're about to leave the station and I'll probably lose service again. Would you mind letting Leonard know that I'll be home tonight?"
"Sure. I'll see you tonight."
Five hours later, Amy stood on the platform of the train station at the Burbank airport, watching the train pull into the station. A handful of people got off the train and she easily spotted her boyfriend. Rushing towards him, she stopped a few feet in front of him. "Hi, Sheldon."
"Hello, Amy," he looked at the ground, avoiding eye contact. "I'm sorry for leaving the way I did."
"I know, but let's not do this here. Are you hungry? Do you want to get something to eat before I take you home?"
Sheldon shrugged, "I guess. It is Thursday, which means it's date night. I won't count this as our date night this week. I'll make it up to you, as well as last week's. Did you tell Max I was coming back?"
"No. Let's find something to eat and you can tell me where you ended up going," suggested Amy as they walked towards her car.
The couple settled on picking up something from a drive-thru and eating in the car. "I didn't get very far. I went from Los Angeles to Seattle on the Coast Starlight. From there, I got on the Empire Builder, intending to go to Chicago, before continuing on to New York on the Lake Shore Limited, but I only made it as far as Glacier National Park in Montana before I decided I needed to come home, so I got off and made the return trip through Seattle and down the coast again."
Amy reached into the paper bag sitting on the armrest between them and pulled out a handful of fries. "Did you enjoy your trip? See anything exciting?"
"It gave me some time to think without any added distractions. A lot happened in the days leading up to my leaving. I realized that Penny and Leonard getting engaged is a good thing. The comic book store burning down was an accident and it could have happened at any time. I knew when I told you I donated sperm seven years ago, you would want to talk about it. I wasn't prepared for how I would feel when you brought it up again. When you didn't mention it for a few weeks after I told you, I hoped you decided to leave well enough alone. You caught me off guard when you came into my office."
"I realize I shouldn't have approached you at work like I did, but I had been unable to focus on my work all week. I needed to talk to you sooner rather than later," Amy checked the time on the clock on the dashboard of her car before continuing. "I want to talk about this more, but we should really get you home. It's almost ten and I told my dad I'd be home by ten."
The next evening, Sheldon arrived at Amy's apartment. Knocking on the door, he heard Max from inside exclaiming, "Momma, that sounds like Sheldon!"
"Go ahead and open the door. See if it's really him," suggested Amy as she helped him unlock the door.
Max froze when the door swung back and revealed Sheldon standing on the other side. "Sheldon! You're back. I missed you," the six-year-old stated before throwing his arms around Sheldon.
"I missed you, too," Sheldon returned the hug. "I'm sorry for not saying goodbye before I left."
"Momma told me you needed to think and sometimes it's easier to think when you're alone. If you leave again to think, can you say goodbye?"
"I promise," Sheldon smiled at Max while reaching into his bag. "I picked something up for you while I was gone."
Max excitedly reached for the gift bag Sheldon was holding out to him. "It's a new train! Can we go play with it?"
Hours later, Max was asleep after insisting Sheldon be the one to tuck him in. Sheldon returned to the living room and found Amy preparing tea for the two of them. "Max is happy that you're back," she stated passing him a mug. "I'm happy you're back, as well, but we need to talk about you leaving."
"Alright," Sheldon agreed. "I was expecting you'd want to talk about this tonight."
"Sheldon, I was angry with you when you left the way you did and I'm still upset about it, but I want you to know that I understand why you did what you did. I was more hurt than anything that you'd just take off like that without talking to me about it first. You could have at least let me know you needed some space to yourself to think about what I was asking."
"I'm sorry. You know I'm not the greatest at talking about my feelings and that when I get overwhelmed, I shut down. You've seen it happen before. I know we need to talk about finding out if I'm his donor, but I'm not quite ready to have that conversation yet. I need to think about how I feel about it more so we can have an actual conversation without me getting overwhelmed and shutting down again." Sheldon looked at Amy before continuing. "I hope you can understand where I'm coming from. We will have that conversation; I just need a little more time."
Amy smiled at Sheldon, "I'm ready to talk whenever you are."