With Leonard and Amy away at a conference, Uncle Sheldon comes to the rescue of an extremely worn-out Penny.
It was half five in the morning, and it was proving to be a very stressful night. Leonard and Amy had both been invited to talk at a conference. While Amy had little reason to turn the request down, Leonard had been extremely apprehensive. Six weeks ago, he had become a father. Before his son was born, he was under the illusion that being an experimental physicist was the best job in the world - he had been proved wrong. Being a dad was the greatest job and now, less than two months in, he couldn't imagine life without his son.
Amy and Leonard were due back early the next morning, not wanting to spend too much time away from home, but a day away seemed too long for Penny, especially with baby Charlie not settling. She'd done everything the same as she would have done with Leonard at home. Bath, bottle, bed. But, with just a couple of hours rest, the baby was wide awake. He wouldn't stop crying and there was nothing Penny could do to get him to stop.
Penny had taken to wandering around the apartment, bawling son in arms. She just wanted to know what was wrong. She had done everything right, and even checked his temperature in case he was ill. He wasn't, but he was still very persistent in his cries.
Across the hall, Sheldon was also awake. Having been woken by all the noise coming from the adjacent apartment, he couldn't go back to sleep. Not that he hadn't tried. The ear plugs in the draw had been useless because it wasn't just the noise coming from his nephew that was too loud. The voices in his head were also far too consuming. He could hear Amy too, and the conversation they had both had just a few weeks previous. Soon, it would be him, up at five thirty in the morning; him with the baby in his arms. Amy was pregnant. Only eight weeks along. The couple had been to an appointment with the obstetrician, and everything seemed really good. The baby was growing right on track, and Amy was healthy. Everything was perfect. But Sheldon couldn't help but worry about how things were going to change.
Never a big fan of things changing, he knew that he had time to adjust to impending fatherhood, although hearing his nephew crying from across the corridor, he couldn't help but be reminded of a point that Amy had made to him just days earlier, as he was telling her of his panic at becoming a father.
'You know, with a baby just across the hall, I'm sure you'll be able to get lots of practice with babies before ours comes.'
So, inspired by his wife, his want to help - and equally his need for sleep, he padded across the hall and knocked on the door of 4A.
It was a miracle that Penny could hear anything over the baby's cries. She could no longer hear herself think about anything other than her son, and how she could get him to stop crying after all this time. But she knew the sounds coming from behind the front door all too well, so they were easy to recognize over Charlie's wails. His regimented knocks came as a comfort to her, although Sheldon's presence would be an added stress. She was waking up the neighbors, and her son was becoming a problem for the other people in the building.
Sheldon didn't wait for an answer to his knocks, instead letting himself into the apartment.
"Sheldon, I'm so sorry." Penny apologized, as he closed the door behind him, looking blankly at the frazzled mother.
"It's fine." He lied. Sheldon knew he'd be paying the price for the lack of sleep tomorrow, but as Charlie's Godfather, he couldn't help but feel obligated to know what was going on, and why the six-week-old had been crying for almost an hour. Of course, there was also a very selfish part of him that wanted to know why Charlie was crying only so that he could finally get the child to stop.
"Charlie seems to have been crying for some time. Is he alright? Is he sick?" He asked. With his last question, instead of feeling his usual panic or fear of catching anything from the infant, he stepped closer. He was concerned by the possibility, so much so, that he didn't stop to think about any implications for his own health.
"No, I checked his temperature. I think he's fine." She explained, continuing to rock the child in her arms.
"But he's still crying." Sheldon pointed out.
"Yes, he is." Penny replied. In that moment, she realized that she didn't have the energy to deal with Sheldon too. Charlie, and his lack of settling, was more than enough at a time when, ten years ago, she would be stumbling back into her apartment after drinking and dancing the night away.
"Then what could be causing him so much distress?" He asked, his voice laced with sympathy. His eyes looking over the baby, trying to figure out for himself what could be wrong. His little face was red from all the screaming, but there was nothing out of the ordinary that he could spot from just a few feet away.
"I don't know!" Penny sighed exasperatedly, running her spare hand through her hair. "I've tried feeding him, changing him, burping him. Sheldon, nothing is working." She told him, feeling utterly useless. "I don't know what to do." She added, tears in her eyes. She looked exhausted, but Sheldon knew better than to say so. Then, the genius had a brainwave. He didn't know where it came from, but he had to give it a shot - nothing else had worked.
"Would you let me hold him?" He asked. Sheldon had only held his best friends' son a handful of times, but he was slowly getting the hang of it.
"Ok." Penny would have been more shocked at his request, but after an hour of her son's cries filling the block, she was desperate and willing to try anything. So, with Amy's words still firmly imprinted in his mind, thanks to his eidetic memory and the concern he had for his future, and his friend, he took the child into his arms.
"Hello Charlie." Sheldon greeted him, once Penny had let go of her son. Soon, there was a shift in the sound coming from the baby.
"How did you do that?" Penny asked, standing in front of the pair in a state of shock, as the cries were slowly getting quieter, until the room was almost silent.
"Do what?" He asked, looking up to his friend. He had no idea how what he had just done had been a massive deal to the new mother.
"Stop him from crying." She replied, her eyes still slightly wide in shock. Sheldon Cooper had just settled her baby.
"I don't know. But I do know that babies can sense stress. Maybe he could pick up on yours?" He suggested. Penny was only listening in part. As Sheldon stood in the living room, peering down proudly at his tiny godson, the new mom had sat down on the sofa. Now that the baby's cries had stopped, she could feel some of her tension fade, and it made her all the more tired.
"What am I doing wrong Sheldon?" She asked him. Penny had placed her elbow on the arm of the sofa and laid her head to rest in her elevated hand.
"Nothing. You're doing a great job." He told her. "We all need help sometimes." Sheldon reasoned, sounding very blasé.
"You don't." She retorted, with a slight snort.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that." He confessed, in a rare moment of depth. He sat down on the sofa next to her, in his spot and looked over to her. "Penny, you really are a brilliant mother." Sheldon told her.
Whether it was the hormones, lack of sleep, or the compliment coming from Sheldon, Penny soon began to feel her eyes mist with tears.
"Thank you." She replied, a soft smile on her face. Looking over to the pair of them, she couldn't help but notice that Sheldon had taken the early morning wake-up call, and unexpected time with Charlie well. She briefly recalled a conversation that she had once had with Amy about her desire to be a mother. Amy had told her that Sheldon would make a good father. Penny thought about it, and at the time wasn't so sure; she didn't voice her opinion out loud. She was glad that she had kept that to herself, because she would have been wrong. Seeing Sheldon with Charlie, she knew that Amy was right - Sheldon would make a pretty good Dad one day.
Penny subconsciously knew that Charlie was safe with Sheldon, so it didn't take her long after closing her eyes briefly to fall asleep. It was a complete accident, but once Sheldon had realized that his friend was resting, he didn't have the heart to wake her up. It had been a long night for her, and he was certain that she was missing having Leonard around to help with the baby. After seeing how stressed she was merely minutes ago, maybe sleep was the best thing for her?
"Well, seeing as your mom is sleeping, don't you think that you should do the same?" He asked the tot, as his godson glared back at him, eyes wide and exploring the world around him. "No?" He questioned rhetorically. Unlike his mother, the infant was well and truly awake. "Alright then Charlie, what shall we discuss?" He questioned. "How about where it all began - the origins of the universe?" Sheldon suggested. It seemed like a good place to start.
As Penny slept, he continued to inform his godson on what he considered the basics. Charlie appeared to be listening intently, before slowly, he too started to fall asleep. Not wanting a change in mood to wake him, Sheldon continued to discuss the creation of Earth, and as he detailed the Big Bang, leaving no stone unturned, Charlie settled completely and drifted off to sleep.
It had just gone 7am when, hold-all in arms, Leonard crept into his apartment and was greeted to a sight he never would have imagined. Sheldon, fast asleep with Charlie in his arms, in his spot, with Penny on the other side of the sofa also sound asleep.
"Good morning." He whispered, placing a soft kiss in his wife's hair. Leonard placed his bag next to the sofa, as he smiled at the set up.
"Wait, where's Charlie?" She panicked, noting the lack of her baby in her arms and her difference in usual surroundings.
"He's here." Sheldon told her softly, his eyes gently opening.
"So, what happened here last night?" Leonard asked, smiling at his best friend, as he rose from his spot and handed the baby over to his father. Before Penny could answer, Sheldon stepped in.
"I came over to check on them both, seeing as you were away, and we must have fallen asleep." It wasn't a lie. It was exactly what he had done, any other details would be left for Penny to tell him, and if she never did, he wouldn't mind. "But I better go back home and check on Amy." He told them, handing the baby back to his father.
"Oh, you might want to sleep on the sofa for the next few days." Leonard warned him.
"Why?" He asked, his voice laced with worry. His eyes suddenly open wide despite the lack of his usual eight hours of sleep.
"She's sick. I don't think it's too bad, but you might want to watch over her a little." He told him calmly, hoping that he wouldn't overreact.
"Oh, she's not sick. Don't worry." Sheldon replied sleepily, wandering back across the corridor.
"What does that mean?" Leonard asked Penny, just after the door to their apartment had been closed. It took her a minute, allowing her sleep clouded brain to catch up with what he had just said.
"She's pregnant." Penny smiled to herself, almost proud of the pair of them. She was too tired to be all that shocked. It wasn't much of a shock but made everything make more sense.
"Did he tell you that?" Leonard asked, in complete shock. He'd never thought he'd see the day.
"No but isn't it obvious. Does it not remind you of when I was pregnant with Charlie? How much time you wanted to spend with Halley and Michael, how sick I was." She listed, which made the physicist connect all of the dots.
"Wow. It does make sense." Leonard thought out loud, smiling like the Cheshire cat. "Sheldon; a dad." He grinned, almost chuckling at the thought. He would never have pictured this ten years ago.
"I know." Penny agreed. "Amy's wanted it for a while." She added thoughtfully, as she could feel her eyes drooping with exhaustion.
"I suppose it was only a matter of time, especially with this little guy just across the hall. He's so cute." Leonard cooed, gazing down at his baby.
"I'm glad you think he's so cute. You can watch him while I go back to bed." She told him, getting up and heading to the bedroom.
The couple would wait for Sheldon and Amy to tell them on their terms, but for now, they were just happy that their lives were falling into place, just as theirs had less than a year ago.
