Longer than I'd like. Thanks, 26.
Chapter 12
Sheldon had been released after a butt-numbing series of inoculations and given a list of things to do (rest, avoid stress, be damned glad you're alive) and things not to do (drink, drive, stress). Leonard and Alex had waited for him, correctly guessing that driving was something he wasn't up for.
Leonard drove Sheldon's Jaguar and Alex followed in his car to give him a ride back to their place. Every attempt to engage in conversation turned into a confrontation.
"Sheldon, that was a very brave thing you did. And also one of the stupidest things. Do you have a death wish? Don't you know how dangerous – "
"Statistics have shown that more accidents occur while the driver is in an agitated conversation than impaired. Please watch the road, Leonard. I have no desire to expire in a fiery crash in a vehicle I have come to feel great affection for."
Leonard threw both hands in the air in frustration and Sheldon grabbed the wheel.
"Perhaps you should seek psychiatric help, Leonard, since you seem to have a death wish and don't care whom you take with you. I suspect that dear Alex would be upset if you died. She cares for you and you for her. Why risk what some would gladly kill for?"
"Why did you let Howard drag Bernadette out of the clean room? She wanted to be with you and you just watched him throw a cockblock that should be on YouTube. Don't you care – "
"Leonard, such vulgarity is beneath you. Howard is in love with his wife."
"Ex-wife."
Sheldon glared at the interruption (and implied correction).
"Who am I to stand between them and their chance to reconcile? Besides which, Bernadette was hardly in a reliable frame of mind to make such a declaration."
"I wasn't sure you heard her." Sheldon Cooper, don't you dare die on me! I love you!
"I heard her. She was just overwhelmed with emotions, Leonard, nothing more. When she realizes what she said and has time to think about it, she'll be mortified and I'll lose a dear friend."
Leonard pulled into Sheldon's driveway and turned off the Jag's engine. "Sheldon. Listen to me. You're my best friend. You are arrogant and condescending and you drive me fucking crazy sometimes but I love you more than my own brother. You're wrong. We all heard it. Howard dragged her away because – "
"Thank you for the ride home. I'll be fine. I have been injected with sufficient anti-virals and antibiotics to enable me to roll around on the floor of a bus after being cut with razor blades and still remain healthy. Howard is also my friend as is Bernadette. Who am I to deny them their chances at happiness? What kind of friend does that?"
"She's more than a friend, Sheldon. You gave her a drawer…" He stopped talking and tossed the keys to Sheldon across the Jag's passenger cabin and sighed heavily.
He knew how his friend's mind worked. He wanted to allow Howard to reunite with Bernadette just as he still longed for his own 'reconciliation' with She Who Must Not Be Named.
Sheldon got out of the car and walked slowly up the drive to the garden gate and waved at Leonard as he got in his own vehicle with Alex and drove off. He could smell the vile stench of being cooped up in a glorified plastic sweat lodge for the past 24 hours and he desperately wanted to shower.
In another vehicle across town a totally different conversation had taken place. It had been just as confrontational but a lot louder.
"Where are we going? Why did you drag me out of there? Didn't you hear what I said? I said – "
"You're overwrought and not thinking straight, Bernie. Listen. Please. I just want to talk. I want to talk about us and see if we can try to – "
"Please pull over. I'll call a cab. We – there is no 'We', Howard, and hasn't been for a long time. Dating you was a solution to the loneliness and nothing more. I've moved on and so should you. Please, pull over and let me out. If you ever really loved me, you'll let me go."
He jerked the car over to the curb and his grip on the steering wheel tightened until he thought he could feel the tendons begin to tear. 'It isn't over. Not by a long shot. She'll come to her senses and realize she is mistaking a huge mistake and she will come crawling back to me on my terms. No one in their right mind could ever love Sheldon Cooper. Even Penny came to her senses.
"Fine. Go. You're making a mistake but I understand how you think what you feel is love when it's just pity and gratitude. He saved your life and all those others because – "
"Goodbye, Howie. I'll call a cab. You'll feel better about things once you reconcile with your mother. She's all you really need."
She took out her cell phone and called for a cab. Yes, she'd been overwhelmed by the entire situation but it wasn't pity. She loved the big stork-dork and she knew he felt more than 'like' for her. The look on his face when he'd found her and exchanged her tanks was nothing but raw emotional longing.
Bernadette had been escorted by the team leader through the decon process, allowed to shower and put on the clothes Leslie Winkle loaned her and then to Sheldon's 'clean room' where he was surrounded by doctors and nurses in protective gowns.
"I know I don't have to tell you that what he did was incredibly brave and incredibly stupid, but that man was ready to die with you rather than live without you," said the team leader.
She heard Howard in the hallway but stayed focused on the figure lying on the gurney, wearing an oxygen mask. She could see the fear and desperation in his eyes and her heart broke when their gazes met.
"Sheldon Cooper, don't you dare die on me! I love you!"
It just popped out. She hadn't intended to make such a pronouncement in public but she couldn't help it. She wanted him to know how she felt so that if…
The cab pulled up and jolted her from her thoughts. She gave the driver Sheldon's address. She was going to go there, take a shower and change clothes and then grab some clean clothes for him and return to the facility. She didn't want him to feel abandoned.
She wasn't Penny. She would stand by her man.
Cooper Residence
Pasadena, CA
His mother and sister were in the kitchen making him something to eat and he'd been surprised to find them in his house when he got back. Apparently Leonard had called them and explained the situation. They'd been here since early that morning.
He was physically exhausted and the last thing he needed was to be fussed over but they were his family and so he listened to their lectures about following the doctor's orders and smiled and nodded and then walked up and into his bedroom to shower.
Sheldon stood in the shower, leaning against the cool tiles, his mind almost totally at rest. The sense of cleanliness was a welcome change from how he'd felt earlier. He owed Leonard an apology for demanding that he roll up the windows. He hadn't caught his own smell until he got out of the car.
Neither his mother or his sister had commented on his stench but he wrote that off to the joy of having him alive and available to nag. He remembered it odd that they had breathed through open mouths.
Bernadette paid off the cab and walked up the driveway.
'His car's here and the hood is hot…he's in there and that's perfect. He won't be able to run from me when I repeat what I said, only this time, no one's gonna get in my way. I'll have my arms around his scrawny frame and my face buried in his neck. He'll have to listen then.'
Bernadette used her key, another huge concession on his part, giving her the key. 'I greatly dislike being interrupted if you choose to drop by or if I'm cooking our dinner, so here,' and he'd handed her a key.
When she thought about it, it hadn't been a concession at all. They weren't in a negotiation at all. They were fumbling their way to a relationship. He'd offered it with that lame-ass excuse of his but what he'd been saying was 'you're always welcome here' in his own shy way.
Bernadette walked through the mudroom and into the kitchen. She paused at the French doors that opened up onto the patio and opened them. The place was stuffy and she wanted to air it out.
"OH!" She turned around and saw Mary and Missy Cooper, both seated at the kitchen table, looking at her in surprised amusement. She knew who they were. She'd met them before.
"I came by to check on Sheldon. I – I was one of the researchers he saved."
"Oh, Bernie, dear, you're so much more than that, aren't you? You have a key and all Shelley talks about is Bernadette, Bernadette, Bernadette."
"It's – " she started to say 'it's complicated' but Missy cut her off when she hauled her into a Missy-hug while Mary Cooper just smiled.
"You two make such a cute couple, Bernadette," said Missy.
Mary Cooper was more to the point. "I thank Jesus that he led you to him in his hours and days of need. That woman nearly destroyed my son and he's been much happier since you two…began dating."
There was no doubt at all in any of their minds just who 'that woman' was, nor the devastation her leaving Sheldon had caused.
"I didn't know he'd been released yet. I came to pick up some clothes so he wouldn't have to wear hospital scrubs home. The CDC has burned all our clothing."
In a much smaller and tremulous voice Bernadette said, "I thought I was going to die and then there he was, swapping out my air tanks and when he looked at me through the suit face plates and smiled, I knew everything would work out."
"Go on up, child, and tell him how you feel. Lord, it's as plain as day that you're head over heels in love with my son. Tell him. He needs to know. I think you'll be surprised at his reaction."
"He's in the shower, Bernie," Missy smirked. "From here I'd say you need one, too. Go. Be kind to the environment. Share the shower."
"Melissa! That's hardly – "
"Momma, stifle. It's not like they haven't seen each other in the all together, now, is it? She has a key…"