Won't be hearing much from Dug^2. Sad.

Chapter 5

Penny eased down the two steps and then the drop from the coach to the concrete floor of the garage. Winkle was still on her hands and knees with spittle running out of her mouth to the puddle of puke on the cement.

"You okay, Leslie?" She handed her a bottle of water from her backpack and then squatted down to wait, a safe distance away. Winkle rinsed out her mouth and spat and then repeated the process.

"Yeah. Sorry about that. The sight of blood…I get woozy but the smell is more than I can stand. How bad is it, Penny?" Winkle tossed the empty plastic bottle into a nearby trash bin and said, "Two points. My Dad would be so proud of me." There was a bitter tinge to her voice. Her father was – had been – a longshoreman and had little use for his only daughter.

"Ah, why don't you close the grille and check out the trailer while I handle the blood and gore. I guess an experimental physicist isn't used to dealing with blood. It's okay, Leslie. It takes some getting used to."

Penny went back up into the motor home and Leslie closed and locked the grille. She did a quick walk-around the huge bus. Sheldon had turned a rich man's RV into a desperate man's armored bus in three days. She could see where he'd welded something on, then cut it off and welded something else in its place. He'd been learning as he went along. It was obvious because the weld's got more and more professional looking and seemed to economize whatever he used.

The big surprise came when she opened up the enclosed horse trailer. She half-expected to find horses but instead there were two camouflaged four-wheelers and two spare tires for the bus. There were also two 55-gallon fuel drums that were full as well as two red plastic 10-gallon gas cans that were full, two propane tanks like you used in a gas grille, and a toolbox and several 5-gallon containers of motor oil. Nylon straps that looked like parachute rigging secured all to the walls of the trailer.

'I seriously misjudged you, Sheldon Cooper. For a dumbass you sure handle Armageddon like a pro.'

Penny deftly cut the long ties of the bandage with scissors from the first aid kit. She started to gently remove the pressure dressing but it stuck and as she eased the dressing away from the cloth she heard his moan of pain.

"Sorry, sweetie, but it's dried on. I need to wet it down and then take it off gently. It'll hurt thought no matter how I do – NO!"

Sheldon reached down and grabbed the dressing with his dirty hand and snatched it away, biting his lower to stifle the scream.

"Just sew it up, Penny. There's an Army field medic's bag behind you on the floor. You'll find everything you…oh, damn…" He started to hyperventilate, not looking at her, ashamed of his weakness.

'It' was a 4 or 5-inch gash in his side just above the belt of his trousers. It looked to be about ½ inch deep and she could see the wound resembled a surgeon's incision. Her stomach flipped over and she shuddered when she realized that someone had done this to him.

She knee-walked over the expensive carpet to the camouflaged Army pack on the floor and tore open the Velcro straps and rummaged around, throwing things aside and putting others in a small pile before her.

When she had everything she needed together, she went back and spread everything out in the order she thought she might need them. She could sew. It was just not two pieces of cloth or a dress she was hemming or a button she was sewing back on. It was Sheldon.

She opened the sterile suture kit and examined the threaded needle and then the wound and she panicked. She couldn't do it. It was Sheldon and it would hurt and they had nothing to deaden the pain and – and – and she couldn't do it.

"Move over, Barbie, I can do it. Just – just hold him still and mop up the - " Leslie swallowed down the sudden rush of bile but steeled herself to sew the wound closed. "Mop up the blood so I can see what I'm doing. Just don't get any on the couch. He'll have a shit-fit about the stain."

Penny folded Sheldon's arms across his chest and then lay down across it and talked to him softly. She talked about where they should go, what the weather might be like in the mountains in December if they went north and then east. She told him how proud they both were of the job he'd done and how he was a fool forever thinking she could leave him behind.

"I'd rather stay here with you and face whatever's going to happen together than be safe somewhere without you."

Leslie straddled Sheldon's thighs to keep him from kicking and leaned down as close as she could get to see what she was doing.

He groaned when she took the first stitch and the second. Penny saw how tightly his eyes were closed and the trickle of tears that ran down his temples and into his hair. Each time Leslie took a stitch he flinched and his whole body stiffened.

Ten stitches. They were sloppy but considering that her only sewing experience had been sewing in the hem of a skirt she'd torn, not bad.

"Okay Dum – er, Sheldon. Sorry, habit. You'll have a scar to show the ladies and probably a hairy tale to explain it. I need some air and Penny will clean up the wound and put on antibiotic crème and a clean dressing. It shouldn't get infected but we'll check it a few times a day and change the dressing. Call my secretary for an appointment to have the stitches removed when they itch. I'll try to squeeze you into my busy schedule."

It was a dumb joke but they all laughed and appreciated the effort. Penny especially. She found a plastic pill container of penicillin caplets among Sheldon's gleanings and made him take two.

She looked at the pharmacy label on the container. 'I wonder who Mrs. Arlene Milstead was?'

"I'm going to the apartment and shower and get Sheldon's fluids from under my fingernails and then I'll bring down what I can carry. Penny, keep an eye on our errand boy. I have a feeling we're really going to need his unique skill set in the months to come," said Leslie, intently studying the dried blood under her fingernails and marveling at how her hands had not shaken at all while she sewed him up as best she could.

"Sheldon, can I trust you to just lie here until I get back? I want to get some sheets and blankets and stuff and make up the bed and you can crash right here, okay?"

"Penny, I stink. I've not bathed since I left and my skin is crawling with germs and – "

"Barbie, help him upstairs and I'll – " she was staring at her hands again.

"Leslie, there is an unopened bottle of hand sanitizer as well as some pHisohex surgical soap in my backpack. I liberated stuff from a pharmacy. That's where I got cut. Some drugged-out freak slashed me with a scalpel but I needed stuff and he was in my way."

Winkle frowned. It was a measure of how exhausted Cooper was if he had these things and never insisted she 'scrub up' before sewing him up.

"What happened then, Moon Pie?" Penny asked, just to keep him alert while she helped him up and pulled his BDU jacket around his shoulders. He really did stink and she had to figure out some way to cover the dressing so he could shower.

"He was totally irrational and raving about getting even with the world. He was slashing at my throat and he'd knocked me into a corner and I had no choice. I – I killed him."

"Wh – when did this happen?" Leslie was shocked that someone as nerdy as Sheldon even knew which end of the gun the bullet came out of but then she remembered him saying that 'everyone in his family played with guns before they could walk'.

"The first morning I think. Things got kind of mixed up and I'm not sure. Maybe the afternoon. I'm not sure of when. What difference does it make now. He's dead. I killed him – and he wasn't the last one. It's a mad house out there. People…people are killing each other like in some video game."

After getting him cleaned up, Penny put him to bed and then went out to the living room. She needed a drink. Several.

Winkle was way ahead of her. She had opened a bottle of 'the good stuff' that Penny had taken from the Cheesecake Factory a million years ago.

"So, are you two sleeping together?" Leslie asked bluntly.

"Yeah. But sleep is the operant word. Listen to me! I sound like Sheldon!"

"I only asked because there's you two in Leonard's room and I wanted to sack out in a bed, not on this couch. It was fine for a night or two but not if the bed's available."

"Oh! I thought…yeah. I like him beside me. Makes me feel safe and – and I know he wouldn't admit it in a million years, but he needs the human contact."

"Okay. I think we should have some options prepared before Dr. Dum – I have to quit calling him that – Sheldon wakes up. He'll sleep all night and probably most of tomorrow. Let's come up with options, finish this bottle of excellent rum, and then crash. He's a surprise, that man. Never figured he'd 'rise to the occasion' but here we are, ready to flee the end of the world in a custom armor plated motor coach."

"Here's to…survival." They toasted each other and then got busy writing destination options on Sheldon's white board.

Nothing more was said about the sleeping arrangements.