Christmas came on the heels of Thanksgiving so quickly this year, Sheldon believed. He had visited his mother for Thanksgiving but for Christmas he could not stand the state of Texas during that time of year and his mother forcing him to church. So Christmas was to be spent alone. If counting Alex, the guys, and—awkwardly enough—the girls was considered alone.
People made such a big deal about the day. He loathed everything about it. There seemed to be so much preparation and food and having to think about what people liked and what they would want, not need. So tedious.
Alex had hung all the decorations at the house and even he had to admit some of them turned out… not so badly. She was on a bit of a Minecraft kick and had modeled the Christmas tree after the squared trees in the game. Everyone oohed and ahhed at the decorations.
He felt almost like a child again when he woke up at dawn. He stood in his robe in front of Alex's door and knocked. "Alex." Knock-knock. "Alex." Knock-knock. "Alex."
She was the only person he knew that actually appreciated his three rounds of knocks as it coincided happily with her OCD.
Alex pulled her door open in the middle of rubbing her eyes, her hair looking as though it had just been electrocuted. She wore nothing but a tank top and shorts that edged a little high for Sheldon's liking. He could see her bright pink bra strap and had to tear his gaze away to her violet eyes.
"Time for presents, it's already dawn. Let's get a move on the day!"
"Hold on, Sheldon, let me brush my teeth and put my contacts in."
"Fine."
He stood outside the bathroom looking in and watching her complete her allotted tasks while nearly bouncing up and down with excitement. Near the end, when she was flossing, he chirped, "Come on, come on, come on!"
"Okay, okay, okay!" Alex replied with a giggle. She had never seen Sheldon so excited about something other than physics. She wasn't prepared for the moment he grabbed her hand—electricity straight to the heart—and led her into the living room.
There was a big box wrapped with red paper and a green bow with Sheldon's name on it. There were several smaller boxes Alex had organized.
"By the alphabet," he said in approval, shaking his head in happy disbelief. He looked at the tag on the huge box. "Ooh, lookie. I get the biggest one!"
There was only one present from Sheldon addressed to Alex that was heavier than expected. She hefted it into her lap and watched the tall physicist as he approached his present. Sheldon tore the top off the box. The bow that held the pieces of cardboard together fluttered to Sheldon's feet and the cardboard box fell away to reveal a stack of shirts, a stack of comic books, and a frame.
"I actually made those shirts, so you have one-of-a-kind clothes. Super rare." She smiled, knowing this would please Sheldon. It had taken her three months to finish all of the design and printing for a short stack of t-shirts. He held each one up and examined it, smiling all the while, peppered occasionally with approving nods. "The comics—there's eighteen of them in all. They're all from your wishlist of comics that you needed to complete your various collections." He carefully examined each, his smile growing larger.
Alex could feel her heart growing warmer with each item he touched as if it were treasure. She was excited for him to look in the frame.
When he glimpsed it, he dropped the comic book that had been in his hand. The frame was inset: the background was a painted picture Alex had spent a painstaking amount of hours on of Dr. Sheldon Cooper holding a Nobel prize for physics. The foreground was a mounted coin. One of her cousins, a jeweler, had melted down some gold and minted a Nobel coin at her request.
"Until you get the real thing, I thought you might like something to have as a placeholder."
Sheldon stared at the frame for minutes. Happiness turned to worry as the moments rolled by and he said nothing, did not move an inch. Until he looked up at her with such intensity, so much she could drown in it. He was silent as he stood, carefully placed the frame in his place on the couch, then wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
"Thank you, Alex. Those are some of the most thoughtful gifts anyone has ever gotten me."
The smile she felt radiated down to her ankles, her blush colored her cheeks and ears and the tip of her nose.
"My present to you may not be as good," Sheldon warned as she slid a nail beneath a corner of her present.
Alex was slower to remove the ruler-straight paper from her present. "It's the though that—"
When the paper was removed, her eyes began to water.
"Oh my God, Sheldon. Is this… is this authentic?" Even as she spoke she was examining a page from the sketchbook of her favorite very famous, very long dead artist. On the other side of the frame was a notice of authenticity and purchase from Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sheldon… This must have cost so much money."
"It wasn't much since it's just a small piece of a sketchbook page. Unlike one of his paintings. That was a lot of money that I didn't have, unfortunately."
She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to keep the tears from leaving her eyes. "This is too much, Sheldon. Thank you."
It was a great start to the day.
Each insisted on hanging their prospective frames and did so very carefully in a handful of hours, lightning quick time for both perfectionists. It was not long after they finished lunch, both strangely quiet and, for some reason or other, unable to look at the other for more than a few seconds at a time, that the party arrived.
Penny wore a cute little red number with a headband that had a spring attached from which hung mistletoe. Bernadette was dressed as a Christmas elf. Amy looked especially sullen in all black and, as a lightweight, looked pretty sloshed and it was only eight o'clock.
Alex and Sheldon bragged about the gifts they'd received and doled out the rest of the presents which were whitewash in comparison.
Dinner passed amicably but once the alcohol began to flow, the mood began to alter drastically.
The three girls sat in the corner in the kitchen drinking wine and whispering amongst themselves.
It reminded Sheldon of awkward family dinners in which Mom and Dad had just had a huge fight and were trying, not very well, to remain civil in front of their twins. Ahh, the holidays.
"So I heard that Howard helped you with the engineering of the Christmas tree," Leonard's shrill voice asked-but-not-asked Alex.
"Yeah, it was really, uh, interesting to work with him. To say the least." Alex smiled in Howard's direction and raised her cup of eggnog in salute. "But he did a great job."
"Thanks. It was nothing, you know," Howard responded, huffing his narrow chest out a little proudly. Bernadette came running as soon as Alex had turned her eyes in his direction. She stationed herself at Howard's arm as if Alex had tried to sexually assault him then and there. Her tinny laugh was a measure to maintain an illusion of calm.
Alex shrugged uncomfortably and there was a piece of Sheldon that felt almost… protective of her, wanting to defend her. She was his roommate, after all. The Christmas lights made her hair look tinted by paint as it usually was. Sheldon's fingers itched. How odd.
"Please tell me this eggnog has alcohol in it," Penny said even as she was about to take a swig.
Leonard raised his eyebrows at her. "Eggnog and wine? That's going to be great in the morning…"
"Well, there's alcoholic and non-alcoholic," Alex put in helpfully. "You're currently drinking non-alcoholic, but here." She offered Penny a smile and a correctly-alcoholed eggnog.
"Hey listen," Penny slurred. "Nobody even asked you. Don't try to act all nice. We all know you stole Sheldon from Amy. It ain't a secret, sister."
"Penny," Bernadette reprimanded sharply.
"Excuse me," Sheldon interrupted. "No one stole me from anyone or anything. She's not my girlfriend. There's not a remote chance for that happening."
"No, no. Listen. My best friend was with him for years. You, hussy, get here for less than a year and you've got him wrapped around your little—"
"Oooookay, Penny, I think we've had enough." Leonard cut her off both in sentence and in drink which he took from her hand and tossed down the kitchen sink. "I think it's about time that we adjourn?"
It seemed a lot longer than actually passed by the time everyone had said their last uncomfortable, we're-ignoring-the-drama-that-happened goodbye. Amy held Penny up and helped her down the stairs, Leonard carrying the gifts behind them. Bernadette, Howard, and Raj left in the same car.
By that time both hosts were exhausted and Alex crawled into her bedroom a little bruised from the hurtful words from Penny. And echoing behind that, Sheldon's words kept haunting her. 'There's not a remote chance for that happening.' 'You're not bad, for an artist.' But what outshone that by just a hair was the picture on her wall, the smile on her face, the warmth in her chest. She pressed her hand against the wall connecting their rooms, pressed the blanket into her nose, and quickly fell asleep.
Sheldon lay awake, feeling shy but charged at the same time. He didn't know what to do with himself. He paced the hallway in front of Alex's door, contemplating knocking. He did so until the ungodly hour of 10:30PM and collapsed onto his bed, sleeping as soon as his head hit the pillow.