"Shelly! Shelly, come back!" Mary yelled, running down the hall after Sheldon. Mae was scuttling along behind them.
Sheldon ignored his mother and stumbled down the halls, long legs and arms flying, tears streaming down his face.
"Go away! I ne'er wan' come heyre again!"
Sheldon tried to duck down a hallway to the maternity ward, but Mary caught him by the arm.
For the briefest second, he flinched.
And then he crumbled.
He fell to the ground as his sobbing started to thin. Mary smoothed his hair down, fighting back her own tears. Mae caught up to them, panting a little.
"Moonpie, don't you listen to him-"
Sheldon abruptly stopped crying. He wiped his eyes and regarded his mother and grandmother with a blank gaze.
"I...I won't." He said quietly. Mary and Mae exchanged a worried look.
"Shelly-"
"I WON'T." He said more forcefully. Without looking at either of them, he stood up from the hospital floor and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Take me home." He murmured, reaching for Mae's hand. His face was scarily blank.
"Did you call Priya?" Raj mumbled as Leonard paced back and forth. After his little rant, Raj had been thrown out of the waiting room. The friends were all waiting in the front hall for news.
Leonard shook his head.
"Nah, she's not picking up." It's Priya's fault this happened. If she hadn't forgotten her bra, Sheldon wouldn't have freaked out this morning.
"Oh, I hope Sheldon's OK." Bernadette whispered fearfully. Howard took her hand.
Penny had leaned against a wall and started crying again.
"I c-can't believe we r-ran. Sh-Sheldon needed us and we left." She whipped her head up suddenly. "We need to go back in." She croaked wiping her eyes. Leonard stopped pacing and knelt down in front of her, wiping her eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve.
"No, don't do that. Then they'll kick us out of the building." He used his free arm to hold her hand. "All we can do it wait."
"And appeal to questionable deities to grant us our deepest and most desperate desire." Amy piped up from the corner. Penny's eyebrows crinkled above her red eyes.
"Huh?" She said in a clogged voice. Leonard helplessly look up at her.
"Pray." He translated.
Mae paced back and forth nervously outside the guest room. Sheldon had ran in and locked himself up the minute they got home. Mary had wanted to talk to him, but Mae forbade her.
"Haven't yoo dun enuff already?" She asked testily, so incredibly angry at her daughter, at herself for bringing Shelly to that stupid hospital. Mary had swallowed, turned on her heel, and left. She and Sheldon didn't speak for almost two years.
That had been four hours ago, and she hadn't heard a peep out of him. Usually when he was upset, he listened to lectures on his Walkman or sung "Deep in the Heart of Texas." until the tears stopped.
But tonight, it was silent.
Mae was nervous.
She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time, then sighed in exasperation. She had waited long enough. She brought her hand to the dark, glossy wood three times.
"Moonpie?" She called. There was no answer. She tried again. "Moonpie, open the door, I wanna talk tuh yoo."
The silence rang through Mae's ears the same time a ripple of fear ran through her stomach.
Call it animal instinct, mother's intuition, Sheldon's keeper-something told Mae something was terribly wrong.
She desperately tried to shove the door in a few more times to no anvil.
In her panic, she yanked a Bobby pin from her hair and stuffed it in the lock.
It clicked.
Not even pausing to admire her own cleverness, Mae ran through the threshold to see Sheldon lying on his back on the floor, a Swiss army knife lying next to his limp hand.
Carved across his back were five crooked, bloody letters.
FrEak.
Mae screamed, running to Sheldon. In a fit on adrenaline, she lifted her grandson into a fireman's carry and ran to the next room, calling 911.
She rocked her unconscious boy for the eternity of fourteen minutes until the paramedics came. She chanted his name to him methodically, three in a row, then a breath. She didn't know it, but Sheldon was fading in and out of consciousness.
"Shelly...Shelly...Shelly...Lord...Shelly...Shelly...Shelly...please..."
"Hey! You three!"
Leonard, Penny and Howard whipped around as Dr. Shea came jogging towards them. They had taken refuge in the lobby's couch as Bernadette and Amy had gone to the bathroom and Raj sat on the floor about fifteen yards away.
"Crap, that's the doctor from the ICU." Howard mumbled.
Leonard wiped his eyes quickly.
"OK, everyone just calm down, we can handle this."
He turned to Dr. Shea, who had her arms crossed and was shooting them reproachful looks. Although she couldn't be more than five feet tall, she radiated power. Leonard gulped down the rest of his tears.
"Hi, can we help you?"
Dr. Shea gestured to the hallway from which she came.
"What were you people doing in the emergency room? That's a restricted area."
Leonard was about to answer when Penny burst into tears next to him.
"I-I'm s-s-so sorreee." She wailed, her usually pretty face a twisted red mess. "O-our friends g-going t-t-to die from-m blood loss and the n-nurse wouldn't let us see him-"
Dr. Shea frowned as Howard dug some tissues from his pockets and handed them to Penny.
"Wait, are you the ones who brought in the tall guy? Blue eyes, Green Arrow shirt?"
"Green Lantern." Penny murmured into her tissues. Leonard ignored her and stepped forward.
"Yes we are, that's Sheldon Cooper. How is he?"
Dr. Shea seemed to relax.
"Oh thank God. We couldn't figure out who he belonged to. You better come quick."
"W-Why?" Howard asked, his voice very small.
Dr. Shea just beckoned them to follow her.
"He's..."
Mae tried to fill in Sheldon's information by memory as he was carted into the next room. She ran after him, papers still in hand.
They had hooked Sheldon up to one of those blood machines. His eyes were starting to flutter open and close.
"Moonpie!" Mae cried, clutching Sheldon's hand. It was so cold. He had trouble focusing on her.
"MeeMaw." He whispered. She squeezed his hand.
"I love yoo so muych." She said fearfully. Sheldon managed a weak head nod.
"Did you call my mother?" He whispered. Mae felt a pang of both horror and guilt.
"I...no. I didn' call any of yer family."
Sheldon squeezed his eyes shut.
"Good." He murmured. Suddenly his eyes opened as quickly as they shut. They were cloudy.
"Can...can you sing Soft Kitty?" He requested, looking like it required all his remaining strength.
Mae, praying to God she wouldn't cry, nodded as Sheldon closed his eyes again.
"Soft Kitty, warm kitty,
Little ball of fur..."
"Happy kitty,
Sleepy kitty..."
Penny's voice caught. She bowed her head as she gripped Sheldon's cold hand.
"Sheldon, you can't go to sleep. We need you so much. We love you so much. Please..."
Leonard walked up to his friend, hands intertwined with Amy's. Her face was whiter than a sheet. He opened his mouth to sat something sweet, something that would lead Sheldon into the next life...
Suddenly, anger was building up inside of him. When he spoke, it was harder and louder than he'd meant.
"Dr. Sheldon Cooper never gives up. How dare you give up on us. On this. On you." The words were tumbling out faster than he knew what to do with them. "You listen to me. You always said, 'the needs of the many outweigh those of the few.' Well...well, we're the many! And we need you Sheldon. You're not a freak, or a monster, or a geek...you're Sheldon. Our Sheldo..."
He faded off his rant as the tears poured down his face. Penny stepped forward once more, taking Sheldon's hand once more. Her face was determined.
"When ever I messed up, he'd make me start from the beginning." She swallowed hard, and then slowly, softly, began.
"Soft kitty,
Warm kitty,
Little ball of fur.
Happy kitty,
Sleepy kitty,
Purr, purr, purr."