Chapter Twelve

"Seven? He has seven different personalities?" Penny's brain felt as if the emergency brake had been cranked and jerked her train of thought to a halt.

"Penny" Missy looked over at her with an air of exasperation "He has six alters. That is the proper words to be callin em" Missy pulled into Soup Plantation's parking spot for to go orders and unbuckled.

Penny thought that if she had someone else living in her body she would notice it. That the gaps in her memory would make her a little suspicious.

"Missy, how does Sheldon not know? How can he be so smart and not know what is happening to him?" it didn't make sense to Penny. Sheldon was the smartest person she had ever met. He knew things going on around him before anyone else. Missy smiled, almost indulgently, and beckoned Penny to follow her. Pushing open the doors to the restaurant, Missy continued.

"If you had met all the alters you would understand. They are all crafty bastards. Think about it. If Shelly knew about what was happening to himself, he'd find a way to stop it" Missy paused, looking rather reflective "or he may have a mental breakdown. It was one of the two. I never paid all that much attention to the quack mama brought him to. My point being, the alters would have to be plain dumb to try and get Sheldon better." Placing the order, they sat down to wait for it to be done.

"Why'd they have to be dumb?"

"They would be pretty much killing themselves. By Sheldon getting his head together, they no longer would exist. That's why they work hard to never let Shelly know. They plant simple, believable, but still entirely fake memories for Shelly. He doesn't question it and if someone tries to bring up the discrepancies an alter will surface to stop them." Shrugging, Missy got up and head in the direction of the bathroom.

Penny could hardly digest this information properly. Sheldon would never be free? Never truly free from himself? Pulling out her IPhone, she pulled the Google application up. 'Funny how I got this app to be able to understand what Sheldon says better and I'm still using it to check out info on him.' Pulling up the Wikipedia page on DID, Penny looked at the symptoms and signs. If someone actually knew about DID, and it's symptoms, they would heavily consider labeling Sheldon with it.

Unexplainable headaches and other body pains? Sheldon was always worried that something was wrong with him and that he was in pain. Maybe he actually is in pain and we never believed him since he was so strange.

Severe memory loss? That was a given, especially with him not remembering why she had come to be on his lap.

Unexplainable phobias? He is scared of just about everything.

Lack of intimacy and personal connections? Until just recently, Penny was almost on the wagon for Sheldon being a robot.

Frequent panic/anxiety attacks? Sheldon freaked out over the smallest things.

Penny had finished reviewing some of the symptoms when her order was called out. While paying, Missy came out and they headed back to the apartment. Penny's brain was swirling with the new information that she had stuffed into it.

Climbing up the stairs, Penny heard raucous yelling coming from the boys apartment.

"Ugh, the man is like a cockroach. You just think about him and he comes up" Penny never thought she could see such an ugly sneer on Missy's pretty face. Pulling open the door, Penny was assaulted with another interesting display.

There was Sheldon, yelling at the screen which had a football game on. If the football game playing, him wearing a grungy hat, t-shirt, and holey blue jeans were not her first clues that something was up, the visual of Sheldon sitting somewhere other than his designated spot would be. He had an open beer and a small tub of chewing tobacco open next to him. This was not Sheldon, that was for certain.

"Well, look what the cat drug in? Who the fuck asked you to come?" Penny was startled at how harsh Missy sounded towards her brother. Not that this was her real brother, but it was still surreal to see.

"Bitch, you ain't the boss a me. Go back under th'rock ya crawled out from under"

Snorting, Missy made her way further into the apartment to put the food down on the counter. Grabbing two beers, Missy handed one to Penny.

"You're gonna need it." Penny grasped the cold bottle and turned back towards the boys living room. Missy went and sat down in Sheldon normal spot and saluted her with the bottle.

"Come over here Penny and meet Patrick"

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