{Alison}
"Alison?" he weakly asked lifting the washcloth off of his face. Over the past, two hours the white cloth square had been rinsed, drenched, and thrown into the freezer uncountable times. A number that directly correlated with the number of times Sheldon had rushed down the hallway into the bathroom. They had worked their way through the first 3 and a half episodes of Star Trek. She would have rather not been stuck trying to remember every detail and keeping tabs on Sheldon. He had told her that he didn't need to see to enjoy it, that he knew every episode in and out. So she had to know everything that happens.
His memory was far superior to hers, she had an amazing memory as far as people go, but that made it harder, an average person would know better than to try to keep up with Sheldon. She was at the exact point where it was almost possible, but more of a challenge than most people would ever dare to take on. She knew that Star Trek was something Sheldon adored, and some tiny part of her didn't want to crush his expectation. She didn't have to think about how Sheldon isn't like normal guys. Normal guys would expect her to understand stupid things like sports or cars, normal guys want sex more than actual love.
Sheldon was the opposite. Sheldon didn't care about cars or sports, he disapproved of physical contact, and sure he is often apathetic, but Alison could think of more than a handful of times where she disapproved of her emotions. She was a scientist, above all else, then she was a girl. Even at age 27 she didn't think of herself as a woman.
Women know where they are going with their lives. Women look for a romantic relationship. She was sitting on a couch next to a sick friend, watching a long syndicated sci-fi show. That was friendship. There was nothing romantic about that. Actually to most women that was a cue to climb out the window and down the side of the building. This was perfect. All her life she had wanted to find a guy, who had no hidden intentions, she had just wanted to live for a little while. In this society that was impossible.
The Mister Spock had said the word "Logical" or some form of it at least six times. Logic, as opposed to spasticity irrationality, everything she had ever done was either a forced little trained reaction to blend into a social situation, anxiety based, or carefully thought out. Most women could explain what anger is. She had learned the appropriate response, all her life she just wanted the choice to blend in or stand out, at her discretion. There was a fine line between the two. She could never find it. Why one person can brush their teeth in class and that is socially acceptable, but she can't fix her hair.
It was stupid, but that was how she learned to live, trying to pick out the tiny little boundaries between socially acceptable and socially inappropriate. She never could find them.
{Penny}
They had been at the rest stop for nearly an hour. It was almost 8:30. She could say that the majority of the group were paired off and sitting on the blue painted benches. Raj and Lucy were whispering about something or other, Amy and Stewart were talking, with an occasional short kiss, but that was where the picturesque scene ended. Leonard had agreed to let Howard drive his car. That was probably a mistake, because Bernadette wanted to sit in the front with him, well it didn't help that he wanted to sit with Penny, but that put Leonard in the back seat.
This irritated his motion sickness, so they agreed to switch off at the rest stop. That all seemed perfect in concept, but when they got there Leonard almost threw up down the side of the car. They somehow managed to get him inside. Howard went back out and discovered they had a nail in the tire. It wasn't leaking and could have been there for miles. That wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't pulled it out, but he did. They had a spare, but no jack. So they had to wait for the emergency road service team to show up with a jack. It had been nearly an hour, but Leonard was recuperating. That meant he was lying down on their bench and Penny kneeled next to him.
Howard was on the phone yelling at the company, while Bernadette had consumed a ridiculous amount of various mountain dew products from the vending machine. Every once in a while she screamed something into the phone in her usual yelling voice. Howard finally seemed to get the point across to the receptionist.
"They should be here in 15 minutes, which probably means 30. I can confirm that the truck has left the building finally," He announced.
A few onlookers stared in question, but in the end they turned around and laughed a bit. She wanted to assume that they were thinking about how they had had car trouble in the past, even though it was more obvious that they looked stupid. It was chaos. Amy and Stewart were the only couple in their party that looked the slightest bit normal. Raj and Lucy seemed to sense that the group had become the center of attention and were looking out at the beautiful tiled lobby with shock and a touch of dismay.
She and Leonard looked a bit odd. He was lying flat on his stomach on a public bench in the middle of everything, while she sat on the floor by his head. Even that didn't compare to Bernadette, who was almost literally bouncing off the walls. The nearly untouched bench was claimed for Howard and herself, marked only by her purse and a pile of empty soda bottles. What was that, like seven?
That wasn't dangerous, but certainly not good.
{Sheldon}
As the dialogue played he could picture the corresponding scene perfectly. The washcloth brought relief, so he had no reason to try to see. Except, he wanted to know what Alison thought, he couldn't help but peek out every once in a while. If she didn't absolutely adore the show that would have to be the end of their short lived friendship, she was great, but this was what Leonard would call a deal breaker. He could only manage a little glimpse without sitting up.
And sitting up was completely out of the question. He had a terrible headache; all he wanted to do was lie on his back, with Alison not quite sitting on his knees, but he didn't want to push her to the floor, and look up at the dim light coming through the cold white cloth, with his left hand across his stomach and his right touching his forehead. He almost though he could fall asleep.
Alison paused the show, nearing the end of the 4th episode, and asked, "Okay you are seriously being really quiet, but I know you aren't asleep. How are you feeling?"
He pulled the cloth off of his face and pushed himself up a half inch.
"I am nauseated and I have quite a headache," he replied with one concise sentence before flopping back down, "After this episode I think I would like to try to get some sleep."
She hit play; he guessed making an effort to get him to sleep faster.
The episode ended shortly after, and she whispered nearly inaudibly, "Nine" she turned off the TV. He was hardly sure he heard the number, but she had to have said it.
The lights had been off in the apartment, now it was completely dark, he could hardly see her right in front of him.
"I'll sleep on the chair, you take the couch," Alison said sweetly.
"Will you sing soft kitty to me?" he asked not thinking that she wouldn't know it.
{Alison}
Soft Kitty… Penny she… Soft Kitty is a song! I know the words; I remember the words from the text, the rhythm if fairly obvious, but what about the tune!
"I can try…" She spit out realizing that she needed to say something. A look of shock crossed his face as he realized that she shouldn't know the song.
"Penny texted the lyrics to me, I didn't know it at the time, but if you tell her that I bought yarn and cat shampoo, I will, oh, who am I kidding… but really" She smiled and brushed the hair out of her face.
"Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty, Little ball of fur," she sung softly and touched his forehead, "Happy Kitty, Sleepy Kitty, Purr, Purr, Purr."
She kissed his forehead just next to where she had placed her hand.
She wanted to ask how far off the real tune she had been. She didn't. She could ask that later, she decided it smarter to just flop down into the armchair and think.
"Promise you'll wake me up if you don't feel well," she whispered not wanting him to feel like he should lie in misery alone just because he didn't want to bother her. She really didn't mind. She sat in the chair, kicked her legs over one arm and set her head on the bottom of the other. Most people would consider it an awkward sleeping position, but she didn't see any problem with it.
She closed her eyes and instantly realized how overwhelmingly tired she really was. It occurred to her that she hadn't slept properly in two nights. She wanted to run every detail of the four episodes through her mind one last time, just to make sure she remembered. She knew that fear and some other emotions heightened your senses and increased your ability to remember things. Over the years she had learned to manipulate that and switch herself into a "mode" where she could remember with increased accuracy.
It would have been perfect to run a quick memory check, but she knew it was nearly certain that she would get sick. More than likely she was already infected. If she didn't get some sleep while she could it might be days before she would have another opportunity. As soon as she stopped fighting it she was out like a light.
{Leonard}
Howard had darted outside only five minutes before. He returned inside, shouting "Thank you so much, you are AMAZING at changing tires!" to the man driving the repair truck. He was dripping wet, it had started pouring down rain, but the one person had managed to change the tire nearly impossibly fast.
"Well, we are ready to hit the road!" He exclaimed in his typical boisterous excited voice.
Bernadette bolted out to the car grabbing his hand and dragging him half the way.
Penny held out her hand to help him up, and when he accepted the offer she pulled him to his feet. He looked back to see Raj and Lucy walking to the door hand in hand. Stewart and Amy were rushing around to pick up their things and join to group outside in the rain. By the time he turned back around he and Penny had nearly made it to the door.
The next thing he knew raindrops were hitting his head at such a rate that he couldn't even begin to attempt to count them. He ran blindly through the rain after Howard and Bernadette, relying on the assumption that between his and Penny's judgment they would make it to the car. When they finally made it across the parking lot he opened Penny's door before rushing to the driver's side door and leaping into the car.
He leaned over and gave Penny a quick kiss before turning back to Howard and Bernadette and asking, "You wouldn't happen to have a towel, would you?"
Howard only shook his head.
"Well, we have another hour of driving, let's just hope it stops raining before we get to the hotel," Leonard indicated.
There was only about 15 minutes of average highway driving before Penny got a phone call.
"Hey Alison, you are going on speaker phone," Penny greeted her as she pressed the little button.
"Sleeping is going to be impossible. Sheldon is really sick. I thought I'd call to see how you liked the hotel while he is resting," her perky voice came through the speakers.
"Actually we hit some car trouble, we are about 45 minutes away, unless we hit this little traffic block that we seem to be getting close to," Leonard told her.
"Oh, no! What happened?" Alison inquired.
"We realized that we were getting a flat at the rest stop. There was a nail in the tire… Then we had to call a company to get a jack… They took an hour to arrive, but now we are back on the road…" Howard interjected.
Sheldon mumbled something too softly for it to be heard, no doubt about the horrible crimes they just committed against the schedule.
"Well, I'm sure Mandy is working the night shift at the desk… She is such a night owl…" Alison spoke with detached sentences, and then wailed, "I wish you the best of luck on your travels but I must rush off to the end of the hallway!"
The phone clicked off, leaving no question as to the location and state of both Alison and Sheldon. Just the thought of Sheldon sick made him pity him.
"Did you hear the way she said goodbye? I have to say it. She and Sheldon would make an adorable couple," Howard exclaimed.
"Yeah, but the cute thing is that they don't see it," Penny interjected.
"Are you kidding, if they got together, well we can all admit that Sheldon can be annoying, to put it nicely. Together they would be the value of Sheldon's capacity for being annoying squared," Leonard countered, "I mean honestly, she is back there watching Star Trek, we will either get a catastrophic explosion, or an inseparable force."
"I think if we," Penny pointed to herself and Bernadette, "drag her out for girls night every once in a while we can keep her sane, and maybe her subtlety will rub off on Sheldon," she proposed.
He could almost feel Penny rolling her eyes, and mouthing "nerd love" to herself in the side mirror. If only she were open to the idea of watching something he liked. Sure that would be great but, that is what the guys are for. Sheldon needed someone who could be irrational and selfless for long enough to catch his attention, and it seemed like that was just what Alison was doing.
He remembered the time he called a code milky green on Sheldon with a cold and basically abandoned him and left him at Penny's mercy. Alison did the opposite. He had known Sheldon for years and left him to his own devices, but Alison knows him for just a week and saves them. She's either crazy or she doesn't know she's in love. And clearly she isn't totally crazy. She does so much for Sheldon, and doesn't get much recognition, all he wants is to get Penny hooked on one Science Fiction series…
Okay I have decided how I want to format this story!The Attraction Hypothesis is going to be Act 1 of ? There are only going to be about 5-6 in universe days left in act 1, but an undecided number of chapters. Thank you for reading and the next update is on it's way!