Secrets and Bionics

The cat is out of the bag now and Sheldon has a secret for her. Past will be brought to light and a friendship might just grow stronger for it.

This chapter is all my own, but I will still give one last thank you to Piperup 1030 for allowing me to write this!

And as always, Please. Read Review and Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Learning from the past

Rowen could do nothing but stare, her eyes locked onto Sheldon's, who's eyes were firmly on the robotic arm. "DON'T LOOK!" she suddenly screamed as she pulled her arm back and tried to cover it with her other hand.

"Rowen," Sheldon said before she cut him off.

"I know this is seriously messed up!" She said, her thoughts and words a jumbled mess, "I swear I'm not a monster! Please... please don't call me a freak!"

"Rowen." He tried again, a little more firmly.

"You can't tell anyone about this! I'm already a weird girl to most people and I don't want to have to leave town again! I like hanging out with you and the others and-"

"ROWEN!" Sheldon all but roared as he grabbed her by her shoulders and forced her to look at him. Once he was sure he had her undivided attention he smiled, any trace of a stern aura around him faded. "It's okay Rowen. I don't think you're a monster or a freak. You are still the same Rowen"

"Y-You don't?" Rowen asked in stunned awe, "...Why?..."

Sheldon gulped slightly as he slid his jacket off. "Promise to keep this to yourself?" Rowen gave him an odd look but nodded none the less. Her jaw dropped as she watched his middle finger slide under his skin just above his elbow.

With the sound of a click the skin on his arm rippled slightly before it rolled up, revealing an arm made of an odd black metal. Rowen's jaw dropped. "You..." she said, unable to wrap her mind around what she was seeing.

"Yup. Me." Sheldon said with a tired smile. Rowen's fingers twitched slightly, which he noticed in an instant. "You're welcome to take a closer look if you want." Bringing her hands up Rowen carefully began sliding her fingers over every groove, nut and bolt on it, she was so focused on it Sheldon almost laughed.

After about fifteen minutes of amazed examination and another five of awkward silence Sheldon finally dropped the other shoe. "So how did that happen?" he asked as he motioned to her exposed arm.

"I really don't like talking about it." Rowen said as she looked down, pain and sadness written all over her face.

"I get that..." Sheldon said with a sympathetic smile, he knew what it was like to have a painful past and the almost incontrollable desire to just bottle it up and shelve the for the rest of your life. Unfortunately years of doing just that and having it come back to bite him in the ass with a steel bear trap taught Sheldon just how bad of an idea that was.

Taking a deep breath, trying and failing to settle his shuttering voice, Sheldon said, "I'll tell you what... If I share, will you?" Rowen suddenly looked up, uncertainty dancing with curiosity beautifully. "I understand dark pasts are hard to talk about, I got more dark secrets than most army men. I also know that attempting to bottle up dark memories can come back to bite you, if anyone can understand I guarantee it's me and everyone needs someone to listen to you every now and then."

Rowen looked down in uncertainly, only just then realizing that she was still holding his hand. She couldn't help but be in awe of the slick metal. "I... I'm not so sure." Taking a deep breath, "B-But I think you're right... you mind going first?" Sheldon couldn't help but give a short laugh at her nervousness, earning an annoyed flick to his forehead for it.

"All right, all right," Sheldon laughed as he rubbed his forehead, "So... I guess I should start off with one of my bigger secrets. I'm technically 107 years old." Rowen gave a stunned look and he laughed again, "No I'm serious. A few years ago I was accidently sent into space, and because the theory of relativity is a vindictive bitch, it took me 75 years to make it back with only a day having passed."

"How exactly does one "Accidently" get sent into space?" Rowen asked with a slight head tilt. Sheldon blushed and turned away, "It was that Jenny girl wasn't it?"

"Kinda but not quite," Sheldon said as he scratched the back of his head, "This happened back when I was still deep in that whole 'Jenny worship' phase." Seeing the smirk on her face and the rose eyebrow he huffed, "I have metal fingers too and have no problem flicking you back." Rowen just stuck her tongue out.

"Alright so Jenny had saved the day like she always does, the only difference being that this time the meteor she stopped had a race of aliens riding on it. When she stopped it they saw her as some sort of goddess, unfortunately at the time so did I so I fit right in on the cult they started for her. TLDR they attempted to do something stupid to 'Honor' her and she chucked them back into space, not one realizing that when she shoved them in to the meteor space ship I was shoved in with them.

"During the 75 years it took me to get back to earth I had to take on many different things to get by, one of which being a cabin boy on a pirate ship. 10 years later I found myself as the ships captain. The life of a space pirate captain is a dangerous one and by the time I made it home I had lost an eye and leg."

"YOU LOST AN EYE?!" Rowen snapped in shock.

"Yes yes, calm down." Sheldon said with a smile, "When I make it back, as you might guess, I was royally pissed. I'm sure it was quite the sight to see a 90 year old man trying to pick up his life where he left off as a teenager. At some point Jenny managed to get me into a de-ager, something that her mother uses to maintain her age. Unfortunately Jenny left me in too long and I was regressed into an infant. On the bright side, at least my eye grew back.

"It was at this moment that the crew that I left found the earth were I was and was going to raise hell about the captain abandoning them. Jenny, in all her robotic brilliance, decided it was a good idea to leave me with them until I was the right age again."

Rowen was silent for a minute. A long, cold, eerie silence. A long, cold, eerie silence that was beginning to send a terrifying chill down Sheldon's back. Gulping slightly Sheldon opened his mouth to try and say something but was cut.

"WHAT IN THE NINE REILMS OF HELL WAS SHE THINKING?!" Rowen's roar was so loud that several of the shingles on the roof rattled and fell off. "What kind of moron thinks it's a good idea to leave a BABY with SPACE PIRATES?! I know that she isn't human but that nonsense is IN HUMAIN!"

"Rowen chill out," Sheldon said, not so much to defend Jenny but more so that Rowen didn't attempt to tear her apart. That ended quickly with her glare.

"I will not," She hissed, "she will not get away with this. You lost an eye in space because of her and even when it grew back she sent you back and you lost a damn arm, and you are trying to defend her?! Does she even know what she did?" Sheldon was quiet and couldn't look her in the eye, "No way..."

"Once again, blind devotion." Sheldon said, "At the time I still thought that we would have a future together and didn't want her to blame herself, three years later I guess I still don't. It happened, nothing she can do or say can fix it save for sending me threw the regressor again but no way in hell am I going three puberty for a third time."

That actually got a laugh out of Rowen, "Yeah okay, I can see that." Calming herself down again, she sighed, "I still don't think that it's right that she got off Scott free."

"Be that as it may, that's what it is." Sheldon said with a tired sigh, "So that's my story, ready to tell yours?"

"No..." she said with a gulp, "but a deal is a deal.

"Just looking at me you no doubt know I'm not a normal girl. Taller, stronger and faster that many Olympic trainers let alone other 17 year old girls." Sheldon nodded at this, it really wasn't all that hard to notice. He grew concerned when he noticed a sour look cross her face. "My 'father'," she spat the word out like it was three month old milk that had been left in the sun, "was a scientist, he specialized in Biomechanics and Gene Manipulation." Sheldon really didn't like the sound of that.

"I was never actually born, traditionally anyway." Rowen said as she sank down to her knees and hugged them tightly, "He found a woman who would donate her eggs for his experiments, I never knew more than she was a brilliant scientist who also had the right kind of athletic prowess. During my incubation he would introduce different compounds into samples he took from me, anything that would benefit me was added.

"Everyday of my life was another experiment. My strength was tested countless times, I was asked to run at top speed from one room to another, They even tested how much my bones could take before breaking and how quickly they could heal. My father always made it clear that I was the prototype of a super soldier, what was to be his greatest work.

"All my life I thought what was happening to me was for the betterment of the world, even as a little girl I was proud of what I was and what I was being used for. I was eager to take the tests, eager to run the laps or lift the weights, all because I was a fool to trust him. I was a prototype alright, just not as a benefit. My father was using me as an experiment so he could have his own army of super soldiers."

Rowen, not hearing anything from the boy before her, shakily looked up and found herself backing up a bit at the pure un-adultured rage in his eyes. Without a word Sheldon turned around and punched threw the wall, iron support beam and all. "That bastard." His voice sounded calm but it made Rowen's blood run ice cold, "What is his name, I can handle him."

"You don't have to worry about it, I took care of that personally," Rowen sighed, She examined her robotic arms as her eyes teared up. "It happened when I was 15, there was an explosion in the lab, I was alone and it cost me both my arms. At first I thought it was an accident, at least until he walked in and berated me about being a failure. Apparently he had done this to test the limits of my healing factor, he just wasn't counting on just how close I was to the generator when it went off. Good news: the little cuts and bruises that I got healed in less than a day, the bad new: my arms weren't salvageable."

The sound of another support beam crumpling drew her attention back to Sheldon, who thankfully just hit the same one. The look in his eyes said it all, demons themselves would run in terror. "Shell you keep doing that and I ain't gonna have a house left."

That seemed to snap Sheldon out of what ever bloodthirsty rage he was in as he blinked, "Huh, oh sorry. Don't worry about it, I'll take care of if." Sheldon blushed and looked away before sighing, "So I'm guessing that he slapped those together for you?"

"It was more than just slapped together," Rowen said as she pulled her other sleeve off and looked over her arms, "one thing I can say about the rotten bastard, he took pride in what he did. I've had to make some modifications over the years after I..."

"You don't have to say it," Sheldon said as he grabbed her hand and looked over the mess of wires and gears, "You aren't the only one who's had to take a life to save themselves. You aren't even the only one in this room." Rowen's eyes widened as her eyes locked with his. "Space pirate, remember? I've had a lot of people after my hide."

Rowen smiled at the boy as he went back to inspecting her arms, his focus solely on what he felt needed to be done. "So, what's the damage?" she asked some what awkwardly.

"A lot," Sheldon said in a serious tone, "No offence but these are torn up and even with the repairs and upgrades they look like they are about to fall apart." Rowen grew worried which Sheldon noticed instantly, "I can make you new ones if you like, I can even make them better if you still have the original blueprints."

Stunned as she was Rowen had trouble answering at first but eventually found her voice. "You can? Th-Thank you! I had no idea what I was going to do if anything happened to them. Unfortunately I don't have the original blueprints, those were lost when I burned the lab down."

Sheldon smiled as he pulled out a sketch book from his bag, "It's cool, we'll just have to work from scratch. Actually, thinking about it, that might be even better because you can personalize it how ever you want!" Sheldon couldn't help but giggle at how giddy she was as she gave all the specs she wanted, most of them being collapsible tools built in the palm.

While Sheldon was busy sketching his design Rowen found her eyes drawn to his left arm, the none robotic one. Her gaze shifted to her arm then back a few times. "It irritates me every time I think about it," Rowen groaned, "I lost my arms and now will never know the feeling of holding my-" she suddenly blushed hard as she covered her mouth.

'That is beyond cute,' Sheldon couldn't help but think as he watched her suddenly turn and hold her stomach, 'I guess she wants to be a mother.' That thought bounced around his head a bit before he came to a decision, "If you want I can give your arms synthetic skin that can simulate the sense of touch." Rowen was suddenly so quiet Sheldon was a bit worried that he might have said something wrong.

"...You can what?"

"The false skin that you saw was something I've been working on for a few years now," Sheldon said as he pressed the hidden button again to re-engage the skin, "It's made from a smart material that form fits and is filled with cyber nerve ending nodes. I hate to say it but it will require a minor procedure to connect to your nervous system but-"

Sheldon was cut off by the feeling of hands clasping his cheeks and lips pressing against his. "THANK YOU!" She shouted in joy as she pulled him into a hug, never noticing his already bright blush going nuclear as his face was pressed into her chest, "Thank you, thank you thank you thank you!" The best response he could come up with was a muffled plea for air.