Chapter 9

Flashback

Sheldon was discharged from the hospital after receiving several stern lectures about the dangers of alcohol and 'binge drinking'. He had really pissed off the doctor when he interrupted to correct him on several points.

Sheldon's mom had made him attend quite a few lectures given by the WCTU in conjunction with her church's abstinence campaign before leaving for college (at the age of 11). While the doctor had many facts right, the Women's Christian Temperance Union's representative had been much more specific and horrific.

Missy drove him back to his house in her rental car. He felt badly, not because of his near-death from alcohol poisoning, oh no, not at all, but rather because he knew his sister rarely had 'a pot to piss in' and this trip must have cost her a fortune.

"Melissa, I shall reimburse you for the cost of your entire trip plus this incredibly clean rental vehicle. Now, don't even start with me, Missy Lou Cooper. I am your older brother and what I say goes."

She was going to say 'thank you' but swallowed her words and instead gave her mother's speech that she'd written down and made Missy memorize.

"Sheldon Lee, you are very precious to me and I regret that the Lord has not found his way into your heart and enabled you to avoid such a foul and frightening experience. I can only – "

"Missy, when did you get religion?"

"Hush, Shelley-bean, Momma made me memorize this and now I'll have to start all over again." She started speaking again.

"Sheldon Lee, you are very precious to me and I regret that the – "

"Melissa, please – I don't need to hear any canned lecture from our mother. Just tell her I heard what you said."

"But Shelley, you didn't let me get to the good part about 'fornicating with harlots outside of marriage' and how all this was because Penny needed the 'bonds of matrimony' to – "

"Not ONE MORE WORD!" She'd never heard her brother use that tone with anyone before and she her mouth snapped shut like a snapping turtle with a crawdad.

"I have some time off and I'm going to come home for at least a week of it so I don't want to have to listen to it twice."

"Shelley, why'd she up and leave you so quick like she did? Were you two having problems? I talked to her just a few weeks ago and she told me how happy she was with you and how you made her life complete. What in the world did you do to change that?"

"I didn't do anything…and I think that's the problem. She wanted fame and fortune and being with me was a roadblock so she left. End of story, Missy, unless you want to sleep on the back porch."

"I just asked. You don't have to get all defensive like."

"And I just answered. So give it a rest."

But she couldn't. She loved her brother and could easily see how this was eating away at him and she kept at him, nagging and nagging at him until finally he'd had enough and left the house and settled himself in the settee (aka the scene of the crime) on the patio and drank from a half-full bottle of vodka he's stuffed between the pillows during his binge.

She called Penny and when the blonde answered the phone with a cheery 'Hi, Missy!' she came a little unglued.

"He almost died and you didn't care enough to even call? I hope you're happy, Ms. Drummond, because when I get my hands on you, all your high-class ways won't save you from the dose of Texas asswhoopin' you're due."

"Missy, you don't understand! I had to leave. I was suffocating and you know how he can be with his damned schedules and routines and I needed to be free and New York is the place and – "

"He got his sabbatical the morning you left but you didn't even give him the courtesy of waiting to see if he could go with you, did you? That was your plan all along, wasn't it? Leave him and never look back! Admit it. You never intended for him to go with you. Nope. You wanted out so you left him behind."

Penny started to cry and Missy disconnected the call and went in search of her big brother (by eight minutes). She stopped just inside the French doors that led out to the patio and saw him upend a vodka bottle and drain it.

"Sheldon Cooper! You tryin' to kill yourself?" She jerked the empty bottle out of his hand and sat down in Penny's spot on the settee and pulled him down so that his head was lying in her lap.

"You need to put this behind you, Shelley. You're a lot smarter than this. You need a change of scenery and you need to take that vacation you got stored up and come home to Texas and get yourself right in the head. Shelley, you're comin' home with me!"

He'd passed out sometime during her unrehearsed speech but it wouldn't have mattered. He had an agenda and no one, not even his kin, could sway him from his goal.

LAX

Missy hugged on her brother to the point where it got embarrassing. Sheldon had come a long way in not cringing when people touched him. He could even initiate a hug on occasion (like when Bernadette left him the night he'd tried to drink himself to death).

But this was too much.

"Missy, let go or you'll miss your flight. Tell Momma I'm doing better and that the WCTU lectures are fresh in my mind now. You need to let go!"

Sheldon watched the youngest of the only three women he vowed ever to love get on a plane and fly back to Texas. No one would ever get close enough to hurt him like she'd done. From now on, only his Meemaw, his momma and his sister would ever touch his heart again.

He caught the shuttle back to Pasadena and mulled over his situation. When the shuttle ended its route at the Hilton in Pasadena he got off and instead of taking a city bus home, walked into the hotel lobby and then into the bar.

He was halfway through his 4th vodka (just vodka, no ice) when his cell chirped the theme from Star Wars and he saw who was calling.

He emptied his glass and motioned the bartender over for another. He looked at his phone and when the bartender brought his fresh drink he turned off his phone. He didn't need to hear anything she had to say. He was done with her and all those like her.

Leonard came after the bartender cut Sheldon off and asked for the telephone number of someone who could 'come fetch yer drunk ass, Doc'. Of course, he gave him Leonard's number.

Sheldon sat perfectly upright on the drive home. He got out of the car and thanked Leonard for 'having my back' and staggered into his house. Leonard followed, afraid that he'd continue his binge drinking once he was home but instead he found Sheldon sitting at his computer desk staring at a picture of an old Asian man on the screen.

"Leonard, I need to meet with Dr. Gong Xiang Li. He has answers to some questions regarding String Theory. I think I'll go ahead and take a brief sabbatical after all. I certainly can't continue on like this."

"Sheldon, I think that's a wise idea. I'll talk with Dr. Gabelhauser and get things rolling. You can plan your phone call to Dr. Li and – "

"Speaking of phone calls – guess who called me?" He held his phone out to Leonard who took it as if it was a turd and he held only the clean end. He looked at the caller ID and saw 'PDrummond'.

"What did she say, buddy? Is she coming back or what?"

"Didn't answer it. If you're curious, listen to the voicemail. Missy talked with her – well, hollered at her really. I'm surprised she called, aren't you?"

Leonard was surprised, and curious, so he listened to Penny's voice as she tearfully apologized and then coldly told him to 'get his shit together and quit acting like a lovesick fool'. There was more but he shut off the call and deleted the voicemail.

"Nothing important, Sheldon. She just apologized for missing Bernadette and Missy's calls. Nothing to worry about."

Sheldon was asleep, sitting up, so Leonard untied and removed his shoes and helped him lie down on the couch and covered him with an afghan and left.

The next morning Sheldon took a cab to the People's Republic of China consulate in Los Angeles and was granted a 10-day visa to visit various scientific research facilities.

A few days later he caught the LAX shuttle bus to the airport and then caught a flight to Hong Kong with connections to Beijing. He hadn't even pitched a fit at TSA sniffing his shoes.

In Beijing, members of the Bureau of State Security were alerted to the pending arrival of Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, an American scientist who exposed the North Korean plot to steal samples of an experimental rocket fuel years earlier.

The bureaucrats pigeonholed him as a possible CIA deep cover agent and put a team on him.

The first thing Sheldon did upon being seated in 1st class was to order a drink and put on the earbuds for iPod to refresh his memory on Mandarin pronunciation.

He was a terrible flyer and the alcohol and focus on the language he hadn't spoken in years took his mind off the germ-laden aircraft.

A/N: I shall finish this as time permits.