{Alison}
The whole morning had been a blur. She hardly slept again, the thought of having to lie to Sheldon kept her up. Sheldon was beyond brilliant. What she had learned to be total overkill might not be enough to convince Sheldon that she knew nothing, and that he needs to stay back. She had run the cup lid again and it seemed like she had a mess on her hands. She thought to remember to thank Raj, even though she had never met him, for bringing Lucy, the one extra person that made it necessary for her to drive Sheldon in a different car.
It was lunchtime. Sheldon planned to join her in the conference room. She could hardly breathe, she would have to make it through all of lunch while making casual conversation, albeit Sheldon's version of casual conversation, when all she could think about was how she had to get the others out without having had any contact with the virus, how she was so new and unproven that she'd be fired in a second if the public was exposed to the virus.
"Sheldon, I just wanted to let you know, at the end of lunch Leonard and I are going back to the building, I didn't finish packing, you were so right about starting early yesterday, and Leonard forgot something. Howard is going to take you home. Just use plenty of hand sanitizer and don't touch anything. You won't catch his cold." She spoke quickly refusing to let him interrupt her.
"But I-" He gasped in protest.
"YOU of all people defeated by the common cold? I mean really Sheldon. YOU are too careful for that," As she talked she was nearly in tears. Panicking from the prospect of the impossible mission, Sheldon was confident enough to take it as a complement as long as she could blink back the tears. Sheldon was too careful, but she wasn't, and this wasn't the common cold. It was all her fault. She wished it could have been her infected by the virus.
No one to blame but herself, and no one else hurt. This forced her to be at fault for harm to someone else. She hated that, she didn't like needing help with her problems or causing problems to others. This was what made her so independent, she was afraid that she would hurt someone, or have to ask someone for help.
{Sheldon}
"YOU of all people defeated by the common cold? I mean really Sheldon. YOU are too careful for that," Alison gushed. It almost looked as if she was about to cry.
"You'll get better; someday you will be able to avoid pathogens with greater accuracy," He told her, he nearly believed it himself. But his saying that seemed to drive her closer to tears. Maybe that wasn't it. Women are so confusing. She was a scientist; perhaps distracting her with her own branch of science would benefit her mood, but how…
""Women, with their X chromosome… Full of nothing but nonsense and twaddle…" if that didn't help he would have to resort to patting her on the back and saying 'There, There'
But it did, she smiled, the tears pooling at the bottom of her eyes, and retorted, "Oh really… Twaddle huh, twaddle that reduces the risk of color blindness, hemophilia-"about to continue she smiled even bigger, adding, "You knew that didn't you… You were just cheering me up."
That was it, science was the most important thing in all the world to her. When Ricky died scientific facts did little to nothing to console her, but the act of cuddling did. Alison was different. She was a certainly a worthy companion. She did want him to take an unnecessary risk in riding home with Howard, but she had admitted that he was right about early packing.
They ate their lunch Alison hardly said a word, so simply starting a conversation he asked her, "So, you haven't seen Star Trek, do you watch other Science Fiction?"
{Alison}
"So, you haven't seen Star Trek, do you watch other Science Fiction?" It was an innocent question, he had only been making simple conversation, but she felt her face turn beet red.
"Well hardly… I've tried not to. I've avoided it. I feared that I'd fail to become a geneticist. I didn't want to give myself anything to dream of back then. Now I've got all of history of Sci-Fi and super heroes to catch up on. I couldn't stop myself from watching the Spider-Man movies." She forced herself to speak slowly, though every part of her wanted to race through the words at incomprehensible speeds.
He didn't freak out; he simply smiled and responded, "Well, I guess we do…"
She beamed back, and gasped, "That would be perfect!" Taking another breath she said, "I guess it seems silly now, but back then I really wasn't sure if I'd make it." This would be great.
{Sheldon}
This would be great; she wanted to learn everything there is to know about all Sci-Fi ever. And who better to teach her. He had to stop himself from saying things that would be a spoiler, and considering that everything was a spoiler it would be hard to talk without spoiling something. Lunch ended quickly, she just smiled, looking like she could hardly breathe.
He could understand her excitement. If he had never seen Star Trek but suddenly got to watch all of the episodes and movies, he would be overjoyed. It made sense that she had broken her rules to watch the Spider-Man movies, he pictured her as a young budding geneticist, and the concept of Spider-Man, it was the logical breaking point.
Leonard came to find her in the conference room, she got up slowly and headed out the door.
"I have to go, see you later!" she smiled and shut the door. He sat for a minute longer before leaving as well.
{Leonard}
They got into Alison's car, she had agreed to let him drive, he had explained that it prevented car sickness; she nodded with a layered thought filled expression.
He had bought a dozen cookies at the store, and they had picked up some tacos from a takeout place. Alison explained that while it would be easier to make tacos she was extremely bad in a kitchen. The last time she had made tacos she burnt the meat, pureed the lettuce in the lettuce dryer, melted the cheese by leaving the bag too close to the stove, and stepped on the tortillas.
It was about two o'clock when she headed over to her apartment.
{Alison}
This was it. She sat crumpled against the wall of her bedroom holding a pillow to her chest. She had thrown the things from Wal-Mart into her suitcase along with her makeup and all of her pajamas and two pairs of jeans with shirts. It was too much to think about. She was surrendering herself to the virus. Taking care of Sheldon, who everyone said was a terrible patient. Her heart was racing, she was terrified, when she was a girl having a cold hardly phased her, but this, she would have run from without any further questions.
Maybe that's what growing up was about, putting on a brave face and doing something that would have scared the crap out of you 20 years ago. She was responsible so she couldn't run away. Nearly in tears for the second time that day, she begged for another way to fix this. 'If there is any other way to make this right, can I please think of it now?' She thought, but with a final search of the situation there was no other way.
Well there were ways out of this, but none of them were honorable. She had choices, but she couldn't use them. There was nothing she could do. She realized that she had shredded her nails and reached for the top drawer of her dresser, pulling out the Urchin Purple duct tape that she had color matched from her High School cheer uniform. Wrapping each of her finger nails in the memory filled color, she set the tape down. Then she pulled out the bag of twist ties that she had been gathering since high school.
"It's been a long time," she mumbled seeking inspiration. She looked at the clock and threw the bag in her suitcase along with some easy mac, and a packed of juice mix, and her frut poofz. She wanted to throw everything in the apartment into the suitcase. The uncertainty of it all… She hated it; she wanted to be able to plan for every possible event, but she couldn't. She threw the half box of tea and tossed an extra from the cabinet on instinct.
She ducked out the door; the others would be arriving early to allow for Sheldon's travel dissertation. They would be there in moments, she wasn't ready. She had spent nearly two hours in her room thinking, and now that she realized the amount of time that had passed she wanted just 5 more minutes. It was now or never, and never wasn't an option.
{Sheldon}
He had set up a power point detailing the trip, this would be nice neat and organized. He had finally arrived home, after a ride in a germ filled car with Howard. He had everything packed and cataloged, and everyone was going to be on time, except for Raj, he would be picking up Lucy and wouldn't get there for two hours. He couldn't see why he wanted to spend so much time with her at the cost of maintaining the routine. The whole thing was disrupting the group, Leonard hadn't packed everything last night, instead choosing to spend the rest of the evening in Penny's apartment.
When Penny moved in across the hall it had taken her forever to get used to the group's schedule. Alison was more than used to the schedule, and she had only been in California for 8 days. She was worth trusting.
At the moment he had more important things to consider. He had identified a rest stop at the one hour mark, as well as two emergency backup rest stops at the half hour and hour and a half locations, because Raj, no matter how many times he is reminded, never remembers to go before they left. Alison and Leonard had said they would pick up tacos. Tacos weren't ideal, but it was almost acceptable. He had gotten used to the fact that there would be schedule deviations for the next week, certainly they wouldn't be able to find the same restaurants, and even something similar would be a miracle.
He didn't see any reason why they had to go for a whole week. There was no point in going 5 days before the convention. Alison had a friend in San Diego but that wasn't a valid explanation for a weeklong trip. What did the others plan to do for a week? They had to know something. He had asked Alison what they would do once.
{…}
She had closed her eyes for a second, smiled- no grinned, stood up out off of her couch and practically screamed, "We can go sightseeing, plus Mandy has lived in San Diego since I started Grad School! She's a local-" She looked thrilled, pointing straight to Sheldon's nose she finished, "Plus she is a hotel manager, she has to know all of the most incredible places in the whole city! We can ask her exactly what we should do."
She was beaming; she closed her eyes and crossed her arms over her shoulders for a half a second then flung them open dangerously.
{…}
In hindsight her elation shouldn't have been enough to get him to settle for a plan that left so much to a hotel manager who only had about 3 and a half years of experience. It was insane. He had acted recklessly, and now it was too late for him to ask her any more questions. As the departure time approached she would only logically get more and more enthusiastic.
He opened the door to his apartment; Howard dragged his suitcase into the apartment and set it next to the pile of luggage Leonard had moved in front of the bookshelf. Sheldon went into his room to gather his luggage, and the flash drive that held the power point presentation of vacation preparation.
{Alison}
She left her apartment and walked into Sheldon's, not knocking as the door was open. She laid her suitcase on the floor by the couch.
"Where is Sheldon?" She whispered.
"His room," Leonard replied matching her volume.
"I am freaking out!" She squeaked.
"I can't tell you that you will be fine. All I can say is that If you have made it this far, you know what you are doing," Leonard reassured.
"Wow. You really think so?" She gasped.
"I know it! You have this crazy spark. I can say that you of all people can survive a week alone with Sheldon. I can't say anything about your crazy super vi-" Howard told her.
"Actually the modified virus is weaker than the wild type…" She corrected, brushing the hair out of her face, blushing unable to handle being complemented.
"You'll be just fine," Howard smiled.
I really hope that you have been enjoying this! Please let me know what you think if you have anything to say, I would love to read it. :)