The last Saturday night of that November marked Sheldon's third romantic date and Dave and Amy's second date. The Italian restaurant was full of men and women, but not enough to keep Amy's eyes from meeting Sheldon Cooper's wistful blue ones.

As the noises from the restaurant faded from her ears, Amy concentrated only on the pounding of her heart. The manager and waiter were fussing, trying to sort out the mess that had ensued after Corly had dropped her tray on the floor. Dave, despite all the turmoil inside the restaurant, remained calm, it seemed that nothing in the world could shake him, until he also saw Sheldon. But this wasn't just any Sheldon, this was Sheldon Cooper, one of the most brilliant physicists of his generation whom he admired with great enthusiasm.

In a gesture he miscalculated, Dave tapped Amy on the shoulder, "Sheldon Cooper is here!" He said. Amy certainly didn't need her hysteria to learn of her ex-boyfriend's presence. Dave's irrational, excited way of talking was embarrassing, but it cleared things up a bit, because as he continued to squeeze Amy's shoulder, Amy watched as this awkward customer walked up to Sheldon and started talking to him. As if she knew his feelings, that woman put an arm around Sheldon's shoulder and then whispered in his ear.

So this was the girl Sheldon was having an affair with? Amy wondered. Was this the girl who accomplished in one day what she couldn't in five years? Amy shook her head and refused to look at them any longer. Sheldon hurt her excessively and the rest didn't matter. She just wanted to get out of there and go as far away as possible, maybe to another city or another country where no one knew her.

Since Dave couldn't read minds and was too excited to miss the opportunity to shake hands with one of the smartest men in America, probably the world, he walked over to Sheldon's desk. By the time Amy realized it, it was too late to stop him. The mathematician approached Sheldon and, with a smile on his lips, extended his hand to shake it respectfully. "Don't be impressed!" He said. "But I am a huge fan of your work!"

Sheldon wasn't interested in knowing, much less shaking hands with the man who was stealing his Amy. Her only interest was in completely ignoring him as she eyed Amy over her giant shoulder. Corly was determined to let the two men have their way, but after the awkward silence that followed after Dave offered Sheldon his hand, she greeted him herself.

"Dr. Cooper, I know you're on a romantic date, and I also know that it might be weird for me to have dinner with your ex-girlfriend, but if it's not too much trouble, would you like to grab a coffee with me?"

Every word in that sentence was wrong, including the entire sentence! And Sheldon wanted to do a mister Spock coupwanted on Dave. Sheldon couldn't stand the idea of being traded for him. The thought of Amy kissing that man was the same feeling he had when he broke into the cine and found her with Stuart. Only now it was worse, much worse! Before, he just found her interesting and enjoyed her company, now he was terribly involved in love.

Long after Dave asked him the question, he heard him mumbling. Everything Sheldon mumbled would be said loud and clear and without worrying about the words. Fortunately, Amy came over to talk to the small group. Corly rubbed her forehead subtly and ducked her head. Based on your knowledge, anything can happen, from a civil conversation to a complete loss of composure and common sense.

Amy looked at Sheldon and then, only after swallowing her own saliva, did she have the courage to speak to him.

"Hi Sheldon, how are you?"

"Hi Amy, I'm fine!"

Corly and Dave watched this exchange of formalities as Corly wondered if they were a couple five years ago. It didn't make sense for two grown people, who at one point in their lives were close, now to start acting like two people without a common past. The language they both used to talk to each other neglected true feelings.

When Amy introduced Dave, the expression on her face was not one of happiness, but one of embarrassment; an awkwardness identified by Corly as well in Sheldon. And Corly continued to study their interactions. Sheldon didn't smile or make any move to indicate he was comfortable in the situation. The muscles in his face tensed involuntarily as he didn't know where to look. His eyes avoided Amy's eyes, Dave's eyes and Corly's eyes, he could only look sideways and then at the floor. And when he got to that point, without having anything to say and without the courage to face his weaknesses, Sheldon ran out of the restaurant without looking back.

"What got into him?" Dave wanted to know. "Why would Dr. Cooper ran away? Was it because of me?"

"It was because of you, yes. "Amy said. "But don't blame yourself, it's not your fault, it's his!"

"Forgive my intrusion, but I don't agree with what you just said!" Corly looked into Amy's eyes.

"Oh, don't you agree?" Amy glared at her.

Amy, who was also jealous, decided to get into the boat and row. If that girl wanted to hear some truths, then she would hear some truths!

Corly went on to say, "Sheldon left because of you, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, you are the one to blame here!"

Amy's lips trembled slightly with anger. "Why, what petulance! Who do you think you are? You've only been with him for two days, while I've known Sheldon for five years!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what you heard! I've known Sheldon a lot longer than you have!"

"Ladies, please.." Dave was afraid the two women would start a fight in the middle of the restaurant.

"I do not understand what you mean!"

"I clarify then so that there are no doubts: You took him from me with your sex without commitment and without love!" Amy replied, visibly offended. Her hurt gleamed deep in her eyes.

"I don't understand, but I can assure you that there was a big misunderstanding. I met Sheldon today!"

"I don't believe you! My friend Penny doesn't lie!"

"I don't know who this Penny is, I just know that the man who ran away is in love with you!"

"Hang on! What did you say?"

"Sheldon and I were having dinner. Nothing happened between us and never will! He loves you so much and he only left because he got jealous when he saw you with that man!" Corly pointed at Dave.

Dave pointed to his chest and asked smugly, "With me?"

"That is true?" Amy still had a shred of doubt in her heart, but Corly dispelled that shadow.

"If you love him too, you must go after him right now, before it's too late!"

"I will go!" Amy didn't think twice about leaving the restaurant behind and looking for Sheldon on the street, on the avenue, in the entire neighborhood if necessary.

When she left, Dave asked a little confused, "But what about me?"

Poor David! Corly felt sorry. But even he was an interesting man!

"I keep you company!" Corly smiled at him. "Do you like Italian food?"

"Actually, I just don't like French food!" David answered. And he had his reasons for not liking France.

Anxiety filled with tension, Amy ran to the end of the restaurant's sidewalk. Sheldon wasn't there. It was impossible for Amy to guess which direction he was going, unless, of course, he went home. But the way Sheldon was bewildered when he left the restaurant, probably the way back home was out of his plans.

To make matters worse, a drizzle began to fall from the sky. In Pasadena it never rained as much as in these last days of the year. A rainy November and maybe the month of December too! Amy thought as she opened the car door. It was impossible to reach him on foot!

Amy didn't accelerate the car. Careful, she started to drive slowly, intending to look carefully in all directions. Her hands followed the course of the steering wheel as she paid attention to the people on the sidewalks. Nobody was him! None of those pedestrians were the man she loved! Five and a half minutes passed quickly and there was no sign of Sheldon. It seemed that he had evaporated from the city.

"Sheldon where are you?" Amy repeated this question several times in the car and, to avoid any doubts, she took out her cell phone and called Leonard. Leonard assured her that Sheldon had not returned home.

Several times, Amy turned to the sides of the car windows, searching people for Sheldon's face. The futility of these gestures in a sigh of regret and in her anguished look, though it also hinted at her responsibility.

Another four minutes passed, now the drizzle had turned to rain.

"Sheldon, I hope you're okay. Hope you are protected from this rain!" Amy wished as she tried to call his phone number. Call dropped and disconnected from car dashboard. Sheldon didn't answer the call because he didn't want to or because he didn't see it? Amy couldn't say. Fortunately, it wouldn't take her long to find out!

At a red light, as the windshield wipers moved back and forth, constantly pushing water, Amy saw a man walking in the rain, and this man was the same walk and height as Sheldon. When the light turned green, she changed lanes and stopped the car at the curb for a closer look.

"Sheldon?" Her voice echoed and the man jumped. He certainly wasn't expecting the scare. "What are you doing in the rain?"

Instead of answering, Sheldon pretended he wasn't listening and turned his face away.

"Will you stop pretending you can't hear me?"

Sheldon continued with the tantrum.

As he walked with shoulders hunched and arms crossed, Amy followed in the car. She was lucky that, because of the rain, traffic was free due to the lack of cars on the streets and there was no police to ticket her.

"Sheldon, please, we need to talk! I want you to get in the car."

Sheldon continued to pretend, even though he was freezing to death and wanted to jump in the car.

"You will be sick!" Amy warned. He did not react to this warning. "Fine! If that's how you want to settle things, then I'm going to get out of the car and make you get in the car against your will!"

Sheldon shrugged. He didn't believe she had that much courage. But Amy made good on her threat. Even though she knew getting out of the car was a stupid mistake, she stopped the car and got out. The only thing Sheldon did was stand still as he watched Amy walk towards him with the raindrops falling on his head and his glasses already fogged up.

By this time, Sheldon's face was as cold and pale as a corpse. Her lips were purple from squeezing them with her teeth. The sodden shirt and all of his clothes.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" Out of love, Amy scolded him sternly.

"Amy, I can't feel my fingers!" He replied. His body shook with pitiful tremors.

At that moment, Amy hugged him. Even though she too was wet from the rain, her body was still warm enough to warm him and make him hug her like his life depended on it.

"You idiot, if something happened to you I would never forgive myself!" Amy closed her eyes. Sheldon too. She had the strange power to calm him down. An he loves her!

It didn't take long for her to lead him to the car.

Once they were inside the car, Amy reached into the backseat and grabbed the jacket she'd left there before entering the restaurant, then handed it to Sheldon.

"Sheldon put jacket on, you're freezing!"

"Is that your jacket?"

"Dress it up!" She ordered.

He obeyed and coughed.

"I'll take you to my apartment and make you a hot drink before we both get sick!"

"A hot chocolate or maybe some tea!" He barely had the strength to speak because his chin was trembling.

When Amy started the car, she asked what he had in mind for running away from her like that.

Some time later, Amy was opening the door to her apartment. When the door opened, she allowed Sheldon to enter first, both of them very embarrassed. That night became a night full of emotion; events they did not expect. Not even in her dreams, Amy imagined that her night would end like this and, who knows, the night would still surprise her!

Amy threw the bag on top of a chair, the bag fell anyway, so she asked Sheldon to wait for her in the living room. Seconds later, she returned with two towels and handed one to Sheldon.

"Thanks. I'm still really cold, but maybe I deserve it for being such a big idiot!"

"You were an idiot, yes, but you don't deserve to be sick!"

Amy dried her hair with the other towel. It was obvious that he was more soaked than she was, but she had also gotten considerably wet. Her now wet dress suggested the design of her body, revealing her waist much more than layers and layers of polyester and wool. The breasts were also marked in the fabric of the dress that now looked like just an extension of the skin. As much as Sheldon didn't want to notice all those details, because those details disturbed him, it was impossible to ignore them.

While the two dried themselves off, the water was brought to the fire for tea.

The entire time, Sheldon maintained an upright posture, which didn't show exactly what he was thinking and feeling.

"Do you feel better? Is your body warm?" Amy asked.

"Looks like the shaking has stopped!" Sheldon responded with an observation. Amy smiled shyly though, a smile to break the silence in the room and mingle with the hiss of the kettle in the kitchen.

"So, Sheldon…" Amy started, choosing the right words so as not to startle him. "..why did you run out of the restaurant?"

Perhaps she knew the answer, but it was important for her to hear it from him. Sheldon wasn't usually afraid of questions, but questions like these made his heart race. Before answering, he ran his tongue between his lips in an involuntary gesture that he almost always did without realizing it.

"I felt uncomfortable!"

"Uncomfortable with what?" Amy insisted.

Sheldon took a deep breath and when his lungs were empty he replied almost at once, "You looked like you were having so much fun at the restaurant, I was jealous!"

"Did you feel jealous?"

"Yes and I am not proud of it!" Sheldon confirmed. Your sincere eyes and your curved mouth. "I was very jealous of you on a romantic date with another man. In fact, I didn't know I could feel so much anger too!"

"Sheldon!" Amy took a few steps towards him and then stopped right under his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me you were jealous instead of running away? I got worried!"

"You didn't give any hint that you still liked me, so I left so I wouldn't watch your happiness with another man! This is called game strategy!"

"No! That's called fear of losing!"

"Who cares?!" Sheldon shrugged.

"Didn't you think for a moment that maybe I was jealous too? I didn't like it either when I saw you on a date with another girl!"

"Are you jealous of me too?"

"Of course! And do you know why?"

"Because Dr. Is Shania Corly as smart as you?"

"Try again!"

"Why did I never take you to that restaurant, even though I know you're addicted to pizza like me?"

"NOT!"

"Then I don't know!"

"Because I love you! Because I like being your girlfriend!"

"Interesting! It looked like you were mad at me!"

"But I was also very angry with you!"

Sheldon furrowed his brows. "I don't understand!"

"Penny told me you had sex with that girl!"

"It wasn't with Dr. Corly, went with Mia!" Sheldon replied, just as surprised as he was now that he was mad at Penny.

Why did Penny come to this ridiculous conclusion? Coitus was not a priority in her life! An important contribution to physics worried him much more. Furthermore, he was not a man carried away by the trivial desires of the flesh. A Nobel Prize? Yes! An exhausting night of sex full of movement and beads of sweat? Certainly not!

"So it is true? Aren't you a virgin anymore?" Amy's heart returned to its initial sadness.

"What? No no no no! You got it wrong!"

"Then who is Mia!"

"It's another girl I had an unromantic date with, I guarantee it!"

"Sheldon, what really happened? I want to know!"

"Okay, but I guess I'm offended! How could anyone assume that I would have sex with a complete stranger without considering that I can't even properly hug the people I love? I love my mom and my Meemaw so much, but I never got to hug them all the time! If you must know, I only wore gloves to meals because my mother, who is a very sweet and incredibly religious lady, made us hold hands while she talked to God. And I love you very much too and that doesn't mean we're going to have sex like two cats in heat!"

"You mean there was nothing, not even a kiss?"

"With Mia? Oh my God, no! That girl didn't know the art of civilized eating. She looked like a hungry wolf about to devour me too. I didn't want to be around her for twenty minutes. That night I left the restaurant and wandered around town until I stopped under your window!"

Amy suddenly remembered that day. She remembered seeing him circling her building as she watched him subtly from behind the curtains.

"That day, I got home late. That must have been why Leonard and Penny had this preposterous idea.

"And Penny only told me because she didn't want me to get my hopes up!"

"Did you have hope?"

"Of course I did, Sheldon, because I never stopped loving you! But when Penny told me about you, I was so mad at you that I decided to go out to dinner with Dave. Deep down, I wanted to take revenge on you for the way you hurt me!"

"Are you saying you were willing to have sex with that man?"

"Yes! Even though I knew I wouldn't have the courage to go all the way, because the only man I really want to be with is you!"

"You know that a sexual relationship with me can take a long time to happen!"

"I will be happy when the time comes!" Amy reached out and touched Sheldon's chest with her right hand. Her fingers felt his chest rise and fall as he breathed in the hot air rushing out of his lungs.

About to kiss her on the mouth, Sheldon didn't think to avoid physical contact. The physical attraction didn't cross his mind, although the physical attraction was there inside him, secretly wanting to surface. Sheldon allowed himself because he had dreamed of that moment for a long time. He hadn't slept or eaten well since the separation, now his balance would be restored.

"I love you too!" Sheldon whispered as his body moved closer and closer to Amy's body.

The first thing Amy felt were Sheldon's hands lightly on her waist. Her heart overflowing with love, she moaned as his mouth opened hers and he began to slide his lips across her lips back and forth in a typically passionate, almost inappropriate waltz. Amy thought of nothing else. At that moment, all of her concentration was focused on her body shivering, but not from the cold. As if Sheldon could hear her thoughts too, he hugged her tighter. That was exactly what she wanted: a breathtaking hug. The gesture of holding her managed to excite her in an embarrassing way, and Amy felt her knees lose support while the rest of her body struggled valiantly. What she didn't know was that Sheldon also had similar symptoms. Including a significant loss of control of his mental faculties, he was unfazed by the fact that the fabric of Amy's dress was thin enough to make him feel the hardened nipples of her breasts in voluptuous friction against his shirt.

Sheldon couldn't explain the sudden fire that ignited inside him, but it was fair to say that the fire awakened "things" he didn't know existed in the discharges of his interior; things like chills in unusual places, arrhythmia, lustful thoughts, a strange heat in genitalia that left him one step away from having an erection. Worst of all was the urge to have coitus! Sheldon found out for himself that he was ready to get laid for the first time. Like everything else in his life, the discovery happened naturally without him being interested in finding it. Until that night, Sheldon hadn't considered sex to be an important part of his life, but now he felt able to give his body to Amy, just as she owned his heart. The only thing he didn't know was what she had done differently to trigger that feeling. Perhaps having lost her for two months helped a little!

When the kiss ended and their mouths parted in a prolonged snap, Amy reopened her eyes and smiled. Her smile was the prettiest thing Sheldon had ever seen, barring all the train stations. Amy caressed the side of her boyfriend's face and repeated that she loved him more than ever today. Sheldon also said that being her boyfriend was better than being her ex-boyfriend. The comment drew another smile from Amy. Sheldon, in turn, looked at her in silence. The pupils of his eyes changed in size and she saw the lump in his throat move, indicating he had something important to say.

Sheldon plucked up the courage to say he wanted to make love to her. It wasn't easy, but every cell in his body wanted to be with Amy that night when it was raining heavily in Pasadena. Unfortunately, a sneeze interrupted their plans.

"Sheldon, you're getting sick!"

"No, I'm not! It was just a sneeze!" He vehemently denied it, but one sneeze turned into several sneezes before finally concluding, "Oh my God, no, I have the flu!"

Instead of losing his virginity, he won a cold!

Amy laid him down on the sofa and began to tend to him. The first thing: he took off the shirt and pants that Sheldon was wearing, as they were damp, then covered him with a warm sheet and served him a cup of tea. That same night, Amy also put expectorant ointment on her boyfriend's chest and sang Soft Kitty to make him sleep.

Two weeks later, the week of the Star Wars premiere, during a conversation with Penny and Bernadette about Amy's birthday present, Sheldon revealed to Leonard and Howard's wives that he was ready for sex with his girlfriend. And Penny, like a good friend, wasted no time in breaking the news to her bestie!

The end