Chapter 6 The Incident

'Please wake up and talk to me, please?'

'Jesus, Sheldon, how do you ever put up with her constant demands and that keening whiny voice of hers?' Whatever was happening in his head was still happening and now seemed to be a bit abrasive to him – even though he'd long since realized that it was his own subconscious taking him to new depths of isolation.

"I love her voice. Since it's the same voice I hear in my dreams, you shouldn't be complaining." Dream-Penny put her hands over her ears and began singing 'La la la la' loudly.

"I need to wake up. This is ridiculous. This is – "

"Oh, Shelllllldon?" Dream-Penny was standing in front of a white board covered with equations, and she was naked and looked incredibly beautiful and vibrant.

"Wanna see the equations that prove String Theory? They've been in the back of your head for ages, sweetie, and you've been too immersed in your damned real world crap to realize you've proven String Theory!"

"Oh, my word! Yes, of course I do, Penny. Step aside please. Oh, no…they're incomplete!"

"Well, a girl's gotta have some secrets. And leverage, Shel, a girl needs leverage to keep her man. Promise to stay with me and I'll show you your equations. They're really quite remarkable, Dr. Cooper. Groundbreaking theory from a man who can have it all by just…looking inward."

Sheldon stared at his Dream-Penny. I have to know what the answers are. I'll have Penny and Newt and a beautiful life. What more do I really need? There'll be no challenges, no set-backs, no arguments, just an idyllic life of perfection.

The neurologist returned with a psychiatrist in tow. After a brief examination and a review of his charts, they met with Penny in a patient consultation conference.

"Penny, since you're his emergency contact person, and in the absence of a parent, guardian or spouse, it's your call." He turned and introduced her to the psychiatrist, Dr. Gideon, who was scarcely older than Penny and looked like she'd just swallowed a bug – a big one.

"Penny, please call me Adele. Now, I'm sure you've noticed that Mr. Cooper – "

"It's DOCTOR Cooper, Adele. He has two doctorates, actually." Penny wasn't going to have any freshly-minted shrink denigrate her Moon Pie. She wished, more than anything, that his mother were here to make what must be a huge decision.

"Um, yes, Dr. Cooper…is nearly catatonic. That means he's awake but totally unresponsive to outside stimuli with, perhaps, the exception of severe pain. Now, as a lay person, you don't understand but it's a serious situation he's in. In extreme situations, the patient is subjected to elecroconvulsive shock therapy – "

"NO! No fucking way are you people going to fry his brain just so he'll be awake and docile and meet some standard of behavior you people set and that helps you sleep at night."

"Penny – " Dr. Gideon interrupted her rant when she took a breath.

"Don't 'Penny' me. I did this to him. I slammed the door and it hit him in the head. You're not going to hurt him anymore. Just – just give me time to talk to him. I can bring him around. You don't know what's going on in his head. He's imagining a beautiful life to take the place of the crappy one he has. I can bring him around, honestly. I just need time."

"You don't have the qualifications or training nor do you – "

"Oh, I have the qualifications, Adele," she said, her voice dripping with contempt and anger. "I've known him for years and we're friends, close friends, and what he's conjuring up in his beautiful mind is just what I'm going to give him in real life. Back off. Unless he's violent or his insurance runs out, you're not touching him with your electrocution crap or with drugs."

She stood up, glared at the pair in white coats, and then stormed out of the conference room and almost ran back to Sheldon's ICE cubicle.

"Sheldon! Please, Shelly, wake up! They're going to zap your brain with electricity and try to bring you back but it's dangerous and they don't care what happens to you – not like I do. Sheldon – please, you got to wake up. I need you. How am I going to have kids without you? What good is being an actress if I've got no one to share the joy with? Please, Moon Pie…"

"So what's it going to be, Moon Pie? A life full of contentment and the knowledge that you're proven String Theory, won the Nobel Prize, married the beautiful actress that everyone wants to bed, have a kid and a dog and…hell, what's it going to be, Moon Pie?"

"Don't call me Moon Pie, Penny!"

His eyes snapped open and she was shocked to hear him say to her, "Don't call me Moon Pie, Penny!" and grin at her. It wasn't his normal Jokeresque grin but a full-toothed happy grin.

He was back.

Sheldon was released to outpatient status as soon as the 'holes in his head' showed signs of healing sufficiently to allow him to leave. There were a long list of 'do's and don't's' and Penny quickly reviewed them and asked clarifying questions of the nurse of some of the more vague ones but soon she was helping Sheldon up the stairs and into her apartment.

He was tired from the drive and his legs were shaking and he was out of breath by the time he'd climbed the stairs to the 4th floor and he was so grateful to sit down that he didn't care it was in Penny's apartment.

She sat across from him on her coffee table and leaned over, placing her palms on his knees, watching him catch his breath.

"Now, Shel, understand something: this is home for the next two weeks, minimum. I'll bring over anything you need from your apartment, within reason, to make your stay more comfortable. You're here because you don't have anyone to stay with you and I've got nothing but time now, so live with it."

"But Penny, what about your job? You hardly left the hospital since my 'awakening' and – "

"I got fired, honey. They said I took off too much work and so they let me go. I tried to explain that it was you – "

"That's – barbaric! We'll sue the bastards, Penny. In the meantime, I have money in the bank, unlike you. I regularly deposit 41% of my paycheck in savings. So if you multiply the average of my biweekly pay times 26 pay periods per year times 8 years, I have approximately $186,664.23 plus interest accrued but unreported since my last statement, more than enough to keep us in food and utilities and 'shoes' for quite a while."

She was shocked. It would take her years to just earn that amount of money.

"But Sheldon, I can't, no, I won't take your money. I made the decision to stay by your side knowing that I might get canned but it was what I wanted to do. I'll get by some how. The rent's paid and they won't cut off my juice until next month so I have that long to find another job after you're back on your feet."

He was confused for a moment and it showed and she leaned over and cupped his cheek in her palm. "Shel, it's okay, really. Don't feel bad. I couldn't leave you there alone and I wanted to be with you, I want to be with you, understand?"

"Look at me, Penny, really look at me. Half the time I don't know what's real and what's not. I hid it from the doctors. But sometimes…sometimes when I look at you I remember how we were together and then realize it was all some kind of cruel joke my mind played on me."

"Hey! None of that. You have a beautiful mind, sweetie, and I've learned that 'smart is sexy'. I'm sorry about the door, Sheldon. I never meant to hurt you. I – I love you, Sheldon Cooper, God help me, but I do, and I'm so sorry that I hurt you."

He flashed for a moment on the 'mirror scene' and then looked away from her. He would never forget what he'd done to himself, what his lack of self-confidence had almost done to himself. It would have been so easy…just look inward and never look back.

Penny punched him lightly in the arm to get his attention. She worried about these long silences and how his eyes glazed over and she was terrified that he would go back to his dream world and never wake up again.

"Sheldon, do you remember telling me that you loved me? It was right after you first woke up. Do you remember saying it? Do you remember what I said?"

"It was all so confusing, Penny. I was passing out and waking up in new situations constantly. I had a son and a wife whom I adored and who seemed to like me. I was a Nobel candidate although I never got to see my equations. You, I mean you in my dreams, wouldn't let me see them unless I turned inward and never looked back. Someone who loved me wouldn't do that, wouldn't demand such a sacrifice…"

'…seemed to like me…' broke her heart for him. He just couldn't believe that he was worthy of anyone's love and it was so apparent that whatever childhood he'd experienced had reinforced those feelings until as an adult he'd acted upon them and created a dream world where he could love and be loved in return.

When Sheldon announced that he was tired and was going to go to bed, Penny smiled and showed him into her room that was immaculately clean. She'd even had the sheets cleaned by a laundress.

He glanced at her with that pleased smirk he got. Finally, she'd done something right. She wasn't so sure when he walked into her bathroom, ran the tub full and then walked back into the bedroom, shedding his clothing in a pile on the floor and getting clean boxers from bureau and slipping into bed.

'I didn't know he wore boxers?'

"Penny, don't stay up too late, okay? You're dead on your feet. Go soak in the tub and then wake me. We'll talk about the days ahead, okay?"

He was asleep when she checked and then dressed in a sleep shirt and went out to the couch, throwing sheets and a pillow on the cushions and falling almost instantly asleep.

"Penny?" Someone gently shook her by the shoulder and she was instantly awake once her brain processed the voice she heard as Sheldon's.

"What's wrong? Are you sick? Bad dreams?"

"No. Lonely. Come to bed, Penny. This couch isn't fit to sleep on and I miss you." His voice was so soft and gentle that she hardly recognized the need behind it.

"Okay, sweetie, if you're sure you can sleep – "

"I can't sleep without you."

Sheldon slipped back into bed on his back and Penny got in, lying on her side as far from him as possible. He was right. The couch was an abominable place to sleep.

She had just settled in with a sigh when Sheldon reached over and pulled her against him, putting her head on his chest and her thigh between his. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head and whispered, 'G'night, Penn' and was asleep in 10 seconds.

'Is this…is he relapsing? Sheldon would never…'

She was totally confused and unsure of how to handle 'New Sheldon' but she vowed to enjoy it. He was so much more comfortable that the couch.

The first hint of trouble came with the loss of cable internet. Penny felt uncomfortable taking Sheldon's money and finally he brought the matter to a head, although not quite the way either of them had ever dreamed of.

"Penny, the internet is down and according to the cable company – "

"I couldn't pay the cable and the electricity, Shel, so I had to make a decision – "

"Penny Cooper, what's mine is ours, got it? Jesus…"

Penny felt the tears build up behind her eyes and she walked quickly into the bathroom and closed the door behind her leaving Sheldon wondering just what he'd done wrong this time.