A/N: Taking a break. Getting burned out. Later.

Reparata

Chapter 8
Present day

Bernadette was just walking into her lab when she felt her cell phone vibrate in her lab coat pocket. She didn't recognize the area code so she let it go to voice mail.

She was wearing her hair in a messy bun because she was probably going to spend most of the morning wearing a Level-5 hazmat suit and she hated it when hair got in her face. The glass faceplate seemed to attract stray strands of hair.

'I wonder if Sheldon can figure out some way to fix that?' Lately she'd entertained such random thoughts about the too-tall physicist a lot. She liked him. Really, really liked him but she knew it was a hopeless cause and so she settled for what time they had together.

She giggled to herself when she remembered their trip up to the wine country. He'd been so courtly and shy. She wondered if it was her imagination or if he was really nervous? That first night in their room at the Bed & Breakfast had been awkward at first until she tugged him down and kissed him, murmuring afterwards that she wanted him and wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

It had been a wonderful weekend of discovery for both of them. They'd been friends before but now they'd crossed an imaginary line and she waited for the 'friends with benefits' explanation and discussion but it never came.

She wasn't sure why, either. Everyone knew that after Penny had ripped him to shreds that any liaison with Dr. Sheldon Cooper was purely physical. Winkle had been the first. Now she was gone.

They'd dated more frequently and she'd initiated a few sleep-overs, somewhat flattered when he told her that she was the only woman to grace his bed since she had left.

They weren't 'exclusive' and she knew that he'd ended things rather abruptly with Leslie Winkle and occasionally dated a woman physicist with whom he was working on a paper for presentation the next week in Vancouver. She had dated her ex-husband but that had abruptly ended when she told him about the wine country trip.

She checked her phone and saw a voice mail message and accessed it. She almost dropped the phone in shock when she heard Penny Drummond tearfully asking for her help.

'She's got a lot of damned nerve calling any of Sheldon's friends for 'help'. I know her. I know how she thinks and there's more to this than her saying she made a mistake. It's doesn't take nearly TWO years to realize you love someone.'

It hadn't taken her long at all to recognize that what she felt for Sheldon was more than just nice comfortable sex and companionship with a dear old friend.

She put her phone in her purse and locked it away. She was going to be working with Ebola Marburg, possibly the most virulent strain of the Ebola virus ever discovered, and she didn't need any distractions. When she had first accepted a fellowship in virology, she'd mentioned it to Sheldon and Penny over Thai food.

"I'm so excited to be offered this opportunity. Virology is such an exciting field of study since viruses are the simplest and yet most complex organisms that we know of."

Sheldon's look had captured hers and she was absolutely certain that something had happened between them but back then she'd written it off as nothing, just Sheldon being Sheldon, but now…

'Sheldon had been thinking of how he must be like a virus – a simple man and yet, oh so complex. I can see the comparison. Sheldon has 'mutated' to adapt to his circumstances just as a virus does. The only difference is – wait – there's really no difference at all!'

And then she had an epiphany. Sheldon was also adapting to her and it was so obvious if you knew what to look for. Allowing her to spend the night, allocating her drawer space, altering his worldview to include her…wow.

JFK Airport

She was going home – to Omaha – for just a few days to see her family and spend a little time just relaxing and making contact with old friends.

Her agent had given her a head's up about a possible revival of a Tennessee Williams classic and that she'd be perfect for the female lead but that auditions weren't even scheduled yet but that she'd had a word with the producer and Penny was 'in like Flynn'.

That worked out fine for her. She'd spend some time at home using the auditions schedule as a reason and then head to Los Angeles and check out the opportunities – and reconnect with her many old friends – and Sheldon – and then be back in New York.

Despite the many phone calls and the two disastrously bitter Skype video calls, she knew he still felt something for her and she had to admit that she felt something, too, and would always feel it.

They'd been good together and in the bliss of night, curled up against him, she'd even considered the possibilities of marriage and a family but then her dream, her obsession, had overshadowed everything and…here she was.

Omaha, Nebraska

'Damn it, Bernadette, answer the frikkin' phone!'

She'd left a voicemail for her when she left New York and now her calls were answered with 'the person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time'. That was more frustrating than no answer or going straight to voicemail.

It meant she'd blocked her cell phone number. To avoid her? That was the question. Penny never considered that there were people in the world with their own agendas.

She and Sheldon had that trait in common.

CalTech Virology Research Center
Level 5 Containment Lab C

She'd been studying the effects of heat on the CDC sample she'd been allocated, trying to determine if this strain might be less virulent than others and susceptible to the human body's elevated temperatures when it happened.

A researcher brushed against a sample container on another workstation and the container fell to the floor and shattered. She was startled by 'Oh Shit!' and looked up and saw the horror on Dr. Sander's face and then the shattered container of his sample at his feet.

She was well-trained and had been through all the drills but to actually be exposed, even though garbed in a Level 5 suit, was still frightening. Bernadette slammed an open palm against the large red button with the black chilling black BioHazard emblem and then sat down on her stool and waited.

The glass airlock doors automatically locked, red lights began flashing and shutters dropped over the lab's exterior observation windows. She was in Level 5 BioHazard isolation and she was scared to death.

Bernadette wished she hadn't locked her phone in her purse but then laughed. Even if she had her cell she couldn't use it. The thick suit she was wearing muffled sounds and she wasn't stupid enough to open her airtight faceplate.

She couldn't call her mom – it would give her another heart attack. She wouldn't call Howard. She'd made up her mind that any 'Beta Version' of their marriage was D.O.A.

She had a burning desire to speak with Sheldon, to hear his distinctly clinical analysis of her situation and the probable outcomes. Even if he said, "Bernadette, you're probably going to die," the sound of his voice would be comforting in a strange way.

The metallic taste of her backpack oxygen brought another worry – how long would it take to get them out?

Sheldon's Office

Sheldon was staring at a clean white board, deep in thought. He was mentally comparing and contrasting three women: Penny Drummond, Ramona Nowitzki, and Bernadette Rostenkowski. He had eliminated Leslie Winkle from any consideration when he'd terminated his non-relationship relationship with her.

It had always been about the sex with Winkle. He wasn't comfortable with her assertiveness and he wasn't sure he even liked her. As with most experiments, observations frequently led to changes in both expectations and methodology – thus Bernadette and Ramona.

Ramona had been a planned facet of the Grand Experiment from the beginning. Bernadette…was an unexpected variable and he normally found such surprises distasteful and distracting but Bernadette was not at all distasteful but was proving to be a distraction – one he seemed to seek out more and more.

He had set up a mental array, a grid of sorts, in his mind's eye and was entering personal observations into each cell when Raj burst into his office, obviously emotionally overwhelmed about something.

'He probably has had another intense conversation with his parents regarding his affiliation with that sweet little girl – objecting just because she's neither Jewish or Indian. Honestly, they should rea – '

"Sheldon! There has been an accident at the Virology Labs – they have instituted a Class 5 BioHazard alert and the lab has been quarantined! People are saying it's very bad."

Bernadette was working in a lab on something she wouldn't discuss but was both excited and uneasy about. She mentioned 'Class 5 levels' but it hadn't registered in his mind what that truly implied: incredibly lethal organisms.

Sheldon grabbed Raj by the neck of his jacket and dragged him along down the hall demanding answers to questions he knew his friend couldn't possibly answer.

He would get those answers himself. He needed those answers because – because it was Bernadette trapped in that damned pathogen-laden laboratory.

A/N: An unintended cliffhanger but moving any of the next chapter to this point would have destroyed the pace and I just can't have that.

So sue me.