Screen Name: Stringboy
Occupation: Theoretical Physicist
IQ: 187
"All set, can you see everything clearly Sheldon?" Howard murmured as he held his phone against his ear, while Raj made a few adjustments to the pinhole camera attached to one of the ornamental badges on Howard's shirt collar.
"Turn a little to the left, I can't quite see the counter…that's better. Now, I trust that this is merely a live feed and not a recording device? I have no wish for Homeland Security to be calling up my mother again…apparently they take a dim view to someone hacking into their supercomputer to purchase uranium; I only needed a small amount and they tattled straight to Mama."
"It's not recording Sheldon, don't panic. It's nearly time…" Howard turned slowly so that Sheldon could get a complete 360 view of the entire café. "There's a couple of women chatting by the window, she could have brought a friend along."
"Biogirl said she didn't have many friends outside of work, which is one of the reasons for her wanting to meet me before the conference."
"Okay…a couple cuddled up in the far corner…can't be them…wait, someone's just walked in and sat down a few tables in front of us…" Howard sat up straighter and held the phone closer to his ear.
"I can't see a thing…she's facing the wrong way. We're just going to have to wait until she orders."
"She is wearing a purple striped cardigan though, it could be her." Raj leant over, bringing up a newspaper to hide his face as he whispered to Howard. Howard nodded, and kept watching the woman as she pulled out her cellphone from the depths of her bag.
"Sheldon, is she going on line to contact you?" Howard asked, watching as her fingers tapped out a message on the screen, squinting as he tried to make out what she was writing but they were a little too far away.
"Whoever she's contacting, it's not me. I'm not currently logged in over at the chatroom, she would see that as soon as she connected. I don't think this is the right woman; maybe Biogirl decided not to show after all." Sheldon sounded a little disappointed and Howard hid a smile. Raj suddenly tapped him on the arm and both men looked up to see the woman heading for the counter.
"Sheldon, she's on the move! Are you getting a clear view of her face?" Howard murmured into his phone and turned further toward the counter. Sheldon didn't respond and Howard pulled the phone away from his ear to see that Sheldon had disconnected the call. "That's odd, he cut me off."
"Perhaps he's given up and gone home." Raj suggested and Howard shrugged, sliding the phone into his pocket and preparing to stand.
"Tepid water, please." The woman at the counter requested, and tapped her fingers nervously on her bag as she waited. Raj hissed at Howard and pulled him back down into his seat.
"It is her! Did you hear? She ordered water!" Howard nodded as he leant forward slightly to get a better view of the woman. She was a small brunette with shoulder length straight hair that was pulled behind her ears and held back by a hairgrip above each ear. She was slightly curvy, accentuated by her sensible knee length black skirt and thick woollen tights. Raj winced a little as he saw the plaid blouse she was wearing under the stripy cardigan and muttered to Howard behind his hand.
"Hardly a fashion statement…" Howard chuckled a little at the remark, and straightened up when he saw Sheldon barrel through the coffee shops main entrance, heading straight for the woman and tapping her on the shoulder.
"Yes?" She said as she slowly turned around and the glass slid slowly out of her hand as she gasped in shock. Sheldon lunged forward to catch the glass before it could hit the floor and Howard saw that his hand was trembling as he placed it gently on the counter. "Sheldon?" The woman whispered so softly that Howard could barely hear her and she reached out a hand toward the taller man, hesitating slightly before resting her fingers lightly against his cheek. Sheldon closed his eyes as he absorbed her soft touch, it had been so long!
"Amy…" He murmured and reached up a hand to cover her own. "Oh God….I can't believe you're really here…Am I dreaming or are you actually standing in front of me?"
"If you're dreaming then I am too…and I don't ever want to wake up." At her soft words, Sheldon whirled around and enfolded her in his arms and burying his head against her neck. Soft sobs emanated from his chest, and the woman ran her hands through his hair, murmuring reassurances in his ear.
Howard just sat there staring at the couple embracing at the counter, he looked over at Raj who was equally shocked.
"I've been looking for you for so long, Amy…where were you?"
"I've been right here in California, for most of the time anyway. I got my doctorate and have been working at UCLA for about five years now. What about you?"
"I'm at Cal-Tech; got my second doctorate there and I'm working as a theoretical physicist. I share an apartment with a colleague at the university just a few blocks away."
"Wait a minute!" Amy leant back against Sheldon's arm and stared up into his familiar face. "Are you 'Stringboy'?"
"Biogirl?" They both chuckled a little as they realised that they had been communicating together for nearly a month and not put two and two together before now.
"I might have guessed it was you, Stringbean." Amy murmured, gently caressing the side of Sheldon's face, and he turned his head to press a soft kiss against her palm.
"I haven't heard that name for a long time, not since our last summer at Harvard." Sheldon's eyes glistened a little at the memory and Amy wiped her thumb under his eye to wipe away the dampness that collected there.
"It was a great year up until then, wasn't it?"
"The best…" He whispered softly, giving her that special smile reserved only for her. "How do you feel about getting out of here?" Amy nodded as she threaded her hand through his arm.
"Where to?"
"My place, we need to have a conversation that's long overdue…" Sheldon's eyes were filled with sadness as he looked down at the woman on his arm. She leant her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes at the pain his words wrought, Sheldon touched her cheek lightly and gave her a reassuring smile. "Nothing like that, I promise."
"Did you see that? Sheldon actually hugged a woman!" Raj kept hitting Howard's arm with excitement and the smaller man finally pulled it out of reach.
"I saw it, I'm having a hard time believing it but I saw it." Howard shook his head with disbelief. "I didn't even know Sheldon went to Harvard!"
"Perhaps Leonard knows…they've been sharing an apartment for nearly five years…give him a call and find out." Raj nudged Howard's arm and prompted him to pump Sheldon's roommate for information.
"Okay." Howard pulled out his phone and dialled Leonard's cell, waiting for him to pick up; as soon as the other man said hello, Howard started questioning him. "Leonard, are you at home?"
"No, I'm over at Penny's helping her set up her new DVD player, why?"
"Sheldon took a girl back to the apartment and they seemed very cosy together!"
"Shut up!" Leonard sputtered, going to a coughing fit caused by shock and Penny patted him on the back until he recovered. Leonard was shocked, but not for the reasons the others suspected…he knew a little something about Sheldon that none of the others did and he wasn't about to betray his friend for the thrill of spreading malicious gossip.
"He ever mention a girl named Amy to you?" Howard asked as he and Raj crowded around the tiny microphone of his phone. Penny mouthed the name to Leonard and he shrugged lightly, hoping to pull off a blasé attitude.
"Not that I can recall. I thought he was meeting his chat room friend this afternoon?"
"He did…and she turned out to be this Amy woman that he apparently already knows. They were hugging and everything!" Howard said and Raj leant forward to speak.
"Get the drinks out, we're on our way over…you know something Leonard, I can tell from the sound of your voice, it's no good trying to hide it."
"I don't know anything…" Leonard protested but it was too late, Howard had already disconnected the call. Leonard sat back on the couch and groaned as he ran his hands through his hair. He looked up to see Penny tapping her foot against the carpet, and he held up his hand.
"I really don't know very much at all…Until just now I didn't even know her name." Leonard leant forward, lacing his hands together and letting them dangle between his knees. "Sheldon isn't as asexual as he lets people think."
"Go on." Penny encouraged, leaning forward slightly to urge him on. Leonard sighed heavily as he got to his feet, sitting on the window ledge and staring out into the warm afternoon sun.
"Ever wonder why Sheldon gets a little quiet around July time?" He glanced over and saw Penny nod. "He tends to take a couple of days off around that time and sits in his room going through old photo albums. He left one open on his bed one day when I went in to borrow something to read and there was this photo of him and a young woman just smiling at each other as they shared an ice cream cone."
"I find that hard to believe…Sheldon doesn't share his food with anyone." Penny remarked, remembering an incident involving a portion of onion rings.
"Well, he did back then, the photo was at least ten years old and it looks like one of the Harvard buildings in the background. He mentioned something about spending a couple of years as a visiting professor after he got back from Germany; I guess that would put him at around nineteen or so."
"I thought Germany was a one-time thing, and he went straight to Cal-Tech after that." Penny frowned as she tried to piece together the timeline, and saw Leonard shaking his head.
"No, I do know that he spent a year or so at Rice back in Texas before he came out here, he's got a diploma on the wall at work."
"Why hasn't he ever mentioned Harvard to any of us?" Penny got up to answer a knock at the door, pulling it open to see Howard and Raj both trying to push through the doorway at the same time. "Steady boys, Leonard was just filling me in on Sheldon's secret lady."
"Did this Amy happen to have wavy brown hair and glasses?" Leonard asked as he pushed away from the window ledge and stuck his hands in his pockets.
"She had brown hair, but it was kind of blah looking." Raj said with a little frown, "It was hanging straight down and clipped back with one of those little push in grips; she did wear glasses though."
Leonard glanced over at Penny and gave her a slight nod, "It has been a while, I guess she could have changed her hair since those days." There was something else significant about the photograph that Leonard wisely decided to keep to himself. "I think Sheldon met her at Harvard when he was a visiting professor for a brief time. She must have been a student there at the time, and they were friends."
"Why's he never talked about it then? What's the big secret?"
"I don't know guys." Leonard held up his hand again, "I say that honestly…I don't know, but whatever reason there was it hurt him enough to want to lock it away and try to forget about it. I've only ever seen the one photograph, Sheldon came back into the room and locked them all away and we've never spoken about it."
"You could casually wander over there and find out what's going on…it is half your apartment after all." Howard stated looking longingly at the front door, and then glancing over at Leonard. The other man just folded his arms across his chest and refused to budge.
"I'm not going to do that, Sheldon is my friend and is entitled to his privacy. If he wanted us to know about Amy he would have told us about her already."
"I agree with Leonard. This woman is obviously someone important to Sheldon, don't you think Raj?" Penny glanced over to where the Indian man had been perched on the edge of the couch, only to find herself addressing thin air. Her eyes widened as she saw her front door standing ajar. "Raj, get back in here!" Penny and the guys raced across the living room and out into the hall to see Raj kneeling outside of Sheldon's apartment with his ear pressed against the door.
"Sshh…They were talking just a moment ago and now Sheldon's gone all quiet and I can't hear anything….Uh-oh, that sounds like someone crying…should we go in?" Raj looked over his shoulder, concern etched on his caramel coloured face, Leonard shook his head and tried to lead the astrophysicist away from the door.
"Leave them alone Raj, Sheldon will deal with it himself."
"But you know how bad he is with feelings…he calls them hippy dippy and unnecessary." Raj exclaimed and clapped his hand over his mouth as his eyes darted toward the door. Howard grabbed his arm and pointed him toward Penny's apartment as the rumble of voices warned them that someone was approaching the door. All four of them just made it across the hallway as Sheldon's door opened.
"Funny…I could have sworn I heard voices from the hallway." Leonard peered out through the spy hole in Penny's front door and saw the red rimmed eyes of his roommate scanning the hallway. "Are you feeling better now, sugar?"
"Did you hear that? Sheldon called her 'sugar'!" Raj squealed in excitement and beamed over at Penny, who couldn't help but smile back in return. Leonard shushed him and turned back to the spyhole, just in time to see Amy reaching up her hand to draw Sheldon back inside the apartment.
"That's enough, let's leave them alone." Leonard said as he turned away from the door. "They've got a lot of time to catch up on."
"Well, I might as well get back to Ma's then if we're not going over there." Howard muttered crossly, and Raj reluctantly agreed, having driven over with Howard to the coffee shop.
"Yeah, I've got a bar shift to get too as well." Penny said as she waved her apron in the air in mock enthusiasm. "What a lucky girl I am."
"Don't worry, Penny. You'll get that big movie role one day and all of this will be but a distant memory." Penny smiled at Raj's vision of the future and gave him peck on the cheek in thanks.
"Is it okay if I hang out here for a little while?" Leonard asked and Penny nodded.
"Sure sweetie, stay as long as you like; my only wish is that you finish getting that thing hooked up before you go." Penny blew him a kiss as she prepared to leave, hooking her arm through the crook of Raj's elbow as they started for the door. "So, Raj…let me tell you about this cute blonde that started at the restaurant a few weeks ago…"
Leonard waited until he couldn't hear the sound of their footsteps anymore and then swiftly hooked the DVD to the TV; he'd only been drawing out the process in order to spend more time with Penny. He tested the player to check that it was working correctly and then switched everything off again and leaving the apartment. He hesitated briefly outside of his own apartment before using his keys to let himself in, making sure that he kept his back turned to the couch.
"Hey Sheldon…" He said as he performed his usual pantomime of hooking his jacket over the back of his swivel chair and throwing his keys in the porcelain bowl on the stand next to the door. He turned around slowly and then stopped in his tracks. "Oh, sorry…I didn't realise you had company."
"That's quite alright Leonard, after all it is your apartment as much as it is mine." Sheldon had been so wrapped up in his own conversation that he had missed the slight hesitation in Leonard's voice, otherwise he might have seen the relieved expression flitter across his roommate's face as he realised that Sheldon hadn't realised that Leonard had been making a production of entering the apartment. "Amy…" Sheldon began, "This is my roommate Leonard. We work together in the Physics department at Cal-Tech." Sheldon waved his hand over at his roommate and the small brunette gave him a warm smile, Leonard waved in return. Sheldon clasped Amy's hand tightly within his own and turned slightly to face Leonard. "Leonard, I'd like you to meet Amy…my wife."