Big Thanks to my beta reader RiStark. Disclaimer: I do not own The Big Bang Theory and no profit is being made from this story.
Sheldon was standing in his office staring at his white board. It was 9:14 am on Wednesday, two days since he and Amy had broken up and since Penny and Leonard had broken up. Two days ago he had snuggled with Penny. Snuggling with Penny had been quite a different experience than snuggling with Amy. It had felt better, more natural, to snuggle with Penny. It also helped that Penny's hair smelled better than Amy's.
Oh no, he thought morosely, here he was thinking about Penny's hair again. This was turning into something akin to an obsession. He did not want to obsess about Penny's hair. He had to think about something else.
Tonight was new comic book night, which was good. It would get his mind off of things such as Penny's hair. Besides, he was looking forward to the new Batman comic book. Batman should take his mind off things, like how holding Penny had made him feel all warm inside. Drat; he was thinking about Penny again!
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door. Before he could say anything, however, Kripke barged in.
"Congwatuwations on winning the Nobeh Pwize, Coopeh" said Kripke in a tone that told Sheldon that Kripke was only in his office because he to be.
Sheldon was grateful for the distraction, but was irritated that it came in the form of Kripke.
"What do you want?" Sheldon asked brusquely.
"I just wanted to wet you know that Pwesident Siebeht wants to see you in his office in ten minutes," said Kripke, looking at Sheldon with discust and awe.
Exactly ten minutes later, Sheldon was knocking on President Siebert's door.
Knock, knock, knock, "President Siebert."
Knock, knock, knock, "President Siebert."
Knock, knock, knock, "President Siebert."
"Come in!" came President Siebert's somewhat exasperated voice through the door.
"Hello, President Siebert," Sheldon said cautiously. He didn't know what President Siebert wanted, but he hoped that it didn't involve physical contact.
"Doctor Cooper! I'm going to cut to the chase. On behalf of Caltech, I would like to officially congratulate you on winning a Nobel Prize!" President Siebert seemed happy; this was good. "I also wanted to personally tell you that you are getting a twenty thousand dollar raise and a bonus of ten thousand dollars."
Sheldon nearly fainted from shock. While he expected a raise, he wasn't expecting one immediately or one of such value. His current salary was sixty three thousand dollars a year. With this raise he would be earning eighty three thousand dollars a year and he would be able to afford to move to an apartment building with a working elevator. But the thought of moving away from Penny made him feel slightly nauseous so he decided not to think about that.
"Thank you," said Sheldon gratefully.
The rest of the morning went pretty normal with the exception of Sheldon's thoughts. He found himself unable to concentrate properly on his equations because his thoughts kept drifting to Penny. There was Penny's delightfully scented hair, the wonderful way her body felt snuggled up next to his two nights ago, the way her breast had felt in his hand the night she had dislocated her shoulder, the soup tattoo on her buttock.
Sheldon felt something stir in his nether regions. He realized that if he kept up his train of thought about Penny then he would be forced to masturbate here at work. The thought of doing something so personal at work would be unacceptable to the point where he would never be able to use the men's room again due to shame and embarrassment.
Sheldon knew that people thought that he didn't have any sexual thoughts at all. The truth of the matter was that he was a man with fully functional genitals and experienced everything that all men with fully functional genitals experienced. He masturbated every Sunday at 7:15 pm because if he did not ejaculate on a regular basis, then he would experience nocturnal emissions which was not acceptable to him at all.
Sheldon usually masturbated to images of scantily clad women with ample hind quarters that he had in several magazines that he kept in his sock drawer. He had the impression, however, that when he got home tonight there would be an unscheduled masturbation session. He wasn't sure which disturbed him more, the fact that just thinking about Penny got him to the point where he was that aroused or the fact that his schedule would be off.
Sheldon decided to make a concerted effort to distance his thoughts from anything that might make his current predicament with his genitals worse. What he should focus on now a life goal. Up until now, his life goal was to win the Nobel Prize. Now he needed a new goal because he would be lost without one. He'd had the goal of winning the Nobel Prize since he was ten years old and it had really helped him direct his life. How would he be able to direct his life without such a goal? He was only thirty three years old and therefore had a lot of time left to live. What did he really want in life? That was something to think about.
Sheldon got so caught up in thinking about his life goal, as to which he was still clueless, that he was nearly late for lunch. When he sat down at the table in the cafeteria with Howard and Raj, the topic of conversation was Raj's dog. Cinnamon had bronchitis and Raj wasn't sure if he should stay home with her or go to the comic book store with the others.
"Is there any comic book in particular that you want?" asked Howard. "I could pick it up for you."
"No comic book in particular. I was just really looking forward to seeing Stuart. However, Cinnamon needs her daddy so I guess I'll have to stay home," Raj said sadly while looking at his food.
Sheldon, who was quickly getting bored of this topic of conversation, decided to speed things along by throwing in his wisdom. "Raj, you just saw Stuart on Monday. Stay home with your dog if it's that important to you. Stuart will be there next week."
"But Stuart is really depressed! I don't think I can see him enough. I mean, we had a really good time on Monday. I made chicken piccata and we watched As Good as it Gets. Then Stuart and I looked through my telescope and I told him all about the different stars." Raj said with a dreamy look in his eyes.
"I'm sure Stuart will understand," said Howard. Sheldon noted that Howard looked uncomfortable.
"I'm not so sure. He really seems to like spending time with me," Raj said while poking at his peas with his fork.
Sheldon, who was understandably bored at this point, sighed. It was at that point that he realized that Leonard was taking an unusually long time to arrive at the table.
"Have either of you two seen Leonard?" he questioned, scanning the cafeteria as he did so.
"Oh, he's over there, sitting with Amy," said Raj, vaguely gesturing to the area of the cafeteria behind Sheldon.
Sheldon looked over and saw Leonard and Amy sitting together and laughing.
"I feel so bad for Cinnamon!" lamented Raj. "She keeps coughing."
Sheldon realized that if he didn't change the subject, he would be listening to Raj talk about Cinnamon and Stuart for the rest of lunch. He needed some advice and since he still hadn't forgiven Leonard for forbidding Penny to go to Sweden with him, he decided that he would just ask Howard and Raj.
"I need some advice," he said cautiously. "As much as I know, which is a lot, there is one thing that I don't know."
"You're asking us for advice?" Howard said incredulously.
"Yes. My problem is this; I have won the Nobel Prize. I have achieved my life goal," Sheldon happily stated.
"How is this a problem?" asked Raj.
"Yeah," agreed Howard. "If it were me, I'd be happy to have won a Nobel Prize."
"Oh, winning the Nobel Prize is not the problem," explained Sheldon. "The problem is that now I don't know what to do with my life now. I need a new life goal."
"Well," said Raj thoughtfully, "You could always find someone to settle down with."
"Raj, you're talking to Sheldon," said Howard.
"Oh, right. Well, if you are not interested in settling down, I have no advice. Sorry." Raj did not sound sorry at all.
"Sheldon, I think Raj has a point about settling down. I mean, Bernadette is the best thing that's ever happened to me. The problem is that you screwed up your relationship with Amy. Who else would be willing to go out with you?" Howard said very pointedly and not at all remorsefully.
Sheldon spent the rest of the work day thinking about what Raj and Howard had said. While he had spent his entire teenage and adult life suppressing his baser urges, that didn't mean that he didn't have any. Leonard had even told him that he was a practically a semi-pro at masturbation. Now that he had won the Nobel Prize, what was stopping him from exploring those baser urges further?
Also something to think about was the thought of settling down. That actually appealed to him. He didn't think that no matter how much he explored his baser urges that he would be one to go having sexual intercourse with multiple partners. Also, he liked the idea of having progeny someday.
Before he could explore this train of thought any further, he received a text message from Penny saying would it be ok if I joined u guys at the comic book store 2nite?
Before he could think about it, his response was a resounding Yes.