Six months had passed and Sheldon still refused Alex's idea of placing her favorite blanket on the chair in the living room. He had explained to her it would make them look like trash, or comparable to Penny's living quarters. Alex had huffed and puffed but Sheldon could not be blown down. They eventually compromised and she was allowed to deploy the blanket only while in use, after that, it must return back to her room. He even amended the roommate agreement to reflect this.

Besides, he had allowed her to add little feminine touches to the apartment at his approval: some paintings, lilac curtains, feminine hygiene products near the chemicals in the bathroom closet, an authentic medieval crossbow… just little things females like to be present in a home.

It was edging on Christmas time and Sheldon had caught the flu since he refused to get the shot (almost as dirty as a toilet seat, those hospitals.) Alex was busy making his hot beverage and he was busy on the couch lying down in his robe with Alex's blanket draped over his body. His feet poked out from the bottom as it was meant to accommodate a much shorter person.

"Did the—AHHH-CHOOO! Sniffle—others call yed to say when they're comeeng over for vintage game nide?"

"Sheldon," Alex said gently as she placed his hot beverage on the coffee table, "the guys aren't going to come over 'til you're better. They all inexplicably disappeared on two-week vacations the day you first got sick. But never mind them. I will play with you if you're feeling up to it."

"You know I'm nodda hip-hop jive mad. I don' like to mix theegs ub. Oh my! Is thad a storb troober?" Sheldon peered into his mug at the storm trooper Alex had created with the foam at the top of his drink.

"Since you're a trooper right now, thought you might like one," she joked with a half-smile twirking the corners of her lips. In her hands, she offered three games they could get started on.

"Thad wan," he proclaimed, extending a Kleenex-full hand to one of his favorite vintage games.

An hour later, Alex had beaten Sheldon 4 out of 5 rounds. Sheldon folded his arms across his chest, ever the petulant child. "It's nod fair because I'b sick."

"I know. That's why I let you win one."

"Led me? Oh, ride, like I would ever belieb thad."

Alex laughed heartily. She disappeared into his room with the humidifier and returned to the living room. She had donned disposable gloves, size small. "Bed time, Doctor Cooper."

"Bud it's only nide o' clock," Sheldon protested. "I still hab thirdy minutes."

She smiled at him, albeit a little haggardly. She then tossed his dirty Kleenexes in a zip loc baggy and threw the baggy and gloves away altogether.

"You don'd look so good," he remarked as he looped his arm around her shoulders and leaned his sick weight on her. He felt as if his legs weighed a hundred pounds and his sinuses at least twice that. His head might explode if he worked too hard.

"Thanks, you're not so hot yourself," she grunted as she helped him settle into his bed.

"I beg to differ," Sheldon said. "I know I hab a teberchurr."

Alex smiled that small smile he had come to call, in his mind, the Patient Smile, and brushed her bangs from her face. "Good night, Sheldon. I'm going to go disinfect the couch."

She checked to make sure the humidifier was on before getting up to leave.

"Wade! Soft kiddy," Sheldon pleaded in a thick voice. He sneezed. "Please?"

Alex sighed, running her delicate fingers through her jagged blond hair. (She had kept it short despite plans to grow it out since Sheldon had remarked once that, in a picture, her hair looked pretty when it was long but that her short hair was much prettier.) "All right, just once tonight, okay?"

Her voice was heavenly. It almost always put him immediately to sleep as he felt so happy, and comfortable, and warm with his favorite childhood lullaby from her lips. Her musical voice was honey dropped in warm milk. The sound lulled him, waves against shore pulling with the tide, and pulling, and pulling…

"Much bedder thad when Penny would do id. You're nod so bad." Sheldon's red-rimmed eyes were sealed shut when he spoke. He could still feel her in the room next to him; her presence was always ferromagnetic in nature to his subconscious. He couldn't smell because his sinuses had clogged his nasal cavities, but he knew her lavender vanilla scent would have just settled into the atmosphere of his room. He found himself half-wishing to smell it now. "For an ardiss."

*~*~*BBT~*~*~*

Something had changed and Alex couldn't really pinpoint the exact moment when it had coalesced into something… other. Maybe it was seeing Sheldon vulnerable, taking care of him, maybe it was the things he murmured to her while he was almost asleep. Whatever it was, she realized she had begun finding herself daydreaming about Sheldon while working on her restorations, while examining the latest art pieces, while painting, while showering, while sleeping…

But it couldn't be anything besides curiosity, right? Her mother always told her Alex loved challenges but, once chewed up, would spit it out like old gum.

Maybe it was because she liked feeling helpful, or that he was always watching her so intently, dissecting her right down to her core with just his stare while his mouth argued and prodded and insulted. To her, it seemed as though there was something else there right below the surface; she could feel it.

He didn't really think the things about her he claimed he did. She knew he was impressed with her Latin (she had won third place in the National Latin Exam) and with her knowledge of random historical facts. She knew he loved how clean she was, despite being the result of a disorder—he had said it was more like perfect order than a disorder.

He wasn't very good at hiding how he felt.

Mid-conversation, even heated ones, he would have drifted out of the conversation so he could give her one of those x-ray stares. Alex sometimes worried he could see right through her, see her for the scared girl she was inside; scared of moving forward, scared of being alone forever, scared of the unknown…

Alex had finished disinfecting the couch—three times, just to be sure—while humming Soft Kitty.

As she gathered her blanket from the couch she realized it still smelled of Sheldon and his natural musk that was impossible to put a name to besides a summer night in the south before a hurricane: salty, earthy, electric, just the lightest touch of a garden a mile down the road. She fell asleep with the blanket enveloping her and dreamt a simple dream of Sheldon holding her while it stormed outside the window.