Through the Looking-Glass (takes place after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
Sheldon looked down and realized he was soaked in sweat. His skin started to itch at the feeling, but he reached out to grab Amy's arm before she left him again. "Amy? When we have Book Club, you'll be there, right?"
"I'm getting really worried about you. I think you should take a cool bath to lower your core temperature further -"
"Promise me, Amy! Promise me you'll be there. At Book Club. There are so many books and so little time!"
She tilted her head. "I promise, Sheldon. I'll always be there. At Book Club or anywhere else you need me."
Nodding in return to her promise, Sheldon loosened his grip on her arm.
"I know you dislike baths, but I really think you should take one," Amy said, very worried about him. "Let's at least get these wet pajamas off." She couldn't remember when Sheldon had last been this sick. In the winter, she and Ada had suffered through a horrible cold, but Sheldon had somehow avoided it. Probably because of all the extra Purell he bought and used. He nodded again, and she started to help him unbutton his pajama top.
"Dad? Mom?"
Amy turned toward the little voice in the hallway. Ada was standing in the open door way, clutching the door frame. "It's okay, sweetheart. Daddy is very sick and had a nightmare, but he's awake now."
She turned her face back to Sheldon, who looked so pitiful. She didn't know how to divide herself this way, between her sick husband and her young child. Not for the first time in the few short years she had been a mother, Amy wished there were at least two of her. She sighed.
"Ada, can you be a very big girl and do Mama and Daddy a gigantic favor?" Ada nodded solemnly. "Will you go to the living room and ask Siri to let you watch something? Will you be a big girl and watch TV alone while Mama helps Daddy feel better?"
Her daughter's eyes widened slightly. "Anything I want?"
"Yes, anything Siri lets you watch," Amy said.
Ada smiled and scurried away.
"I'm not sure that was a good idea," Sheldon said, swinging his legs over to the side of the bed.
"It's fine, Sheldon. Remember how precise you were when you set up the parental controls? Come on, you're taking a bath," she said it firmly, but Sheldon didn't even try to argue.
She helped him to the bathroom and into the lukewarm water. "Is that too cold? It needs to be cool, but I don't want to make you chill again."
"No, it feels good," he answered. He laid his head back and let Amy drip and smooth the water over his warm body. She wondered if she should take his temperature again.
"Lean forward, let me get your back." He obliged. "Better?" She asked, having finished her ministrations. He nodded. She started to let the water drain, and picked up the hand sprayer to rinse him off. Sheldon smiled at her weakly. Yes, even sick Sheldon, probably especially sick Sheldon, would not want to sit in a pool of his own filth. She held his arm as he got out and was about to help dry him off when he spoke.
"Amy, I have to use the bathroom."
She laid the towel down. "Okay. I'll wait outside the door."
"No, go back to Ada. I'm fine, really. I think that helped. I'll just go back to bed."
Amy frowned. Divided, again.
"Go." Sheldon waved his hand. "I'm fine. Check on Ada."
With not a little reservation, Amy nodded, turned, and left. She paused at the end of the hallway, seeing Ada sitting on the sofa, her face illuminated by the television screen. She smiled. In that moment, her knobby knees tucked under her chin, sitting in Sheldon's spot, her hair still pulled back in the low ponytail she had wore to school, focusing so intently on something on the screen, Ada really did look so much like her father.
Amy walked over to sit next to her. "Ada, you put your pajamas on?" They were fuchsia, a long sleeve tee shirt and tight pants covered in simplified and stylized amebas, cells, and even little DNA strands. Sheldon had picked them out for her last birthday.
"I'm being a big girl," she answered, still watching the television, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Yes, sometimes she was so much like her father.
"Yes, you are a big girl. Thank you for helping me." Amy felt another devision, torn between wanting Ada to remain her little baby forever and the desire to see her grow up and conquer the world. Turning toward the screen herself, Amy watched, confused, for a couple of minutes. "Is this a Star Trek cartoon?"
"I wanted real Star Trek, but Siri wouldn't let me," Ada said, her voice full of pouting.
"That's because Star Trek is rated PG and Siri will only let you watch G rated shows," Amy explained.
"But Dad and I watch it all the time!" Ada protested, finally turning away from the television to look at Amy.
"Well . . . that's because Daddy is there," Amy said weakly. Ada turned back toward the screen, sucked into any lit monitor in the way all small children were.
Every Saturday morning, for almost as long as Ada had been alive, she and her father spent that time together, just the two of them. At first it was part of the schedule, a feeding at 6:30 and then Sheldon would take her while Amy fell back to sleep. Then it became that they were both morning people. Amy knew she shouldn't complain about this special time between them. They were quiet and letting her sleep in, and Sheldon loved sharing his life-long Saturday morning ritual with his daughter. Yes, he had briefly fumed about the schedule change when they stopped showing Doctor Who at that time and switched to Star Trek; but instilling a love of Star Trek in his little girl? He quickly adapted.
But Saturday mornings were yet another thing that made Amy feel divided. She loved coming around the corner and seeing the two of them, still in their pajamas, watching Star Trek together, their empty cereal bowls still setting on the coffee table. However, more often than not, Ada was curled up in his arms, the only other person allowed in Sheldon's spot. It wasn't rational, this weird almost-jealousy. After all, Amy had never seriously tried to sit in Sheldon's spot when he was home. But, with the entitlement of all children, Ada just assumed she could sit there, too; and, this was really the crux of the matter, Sheldon let her. So, that's how Amy usually saw them on Saturday mornings: two very similar peas, curled into one very happy pod.
Amy shook her head and tired to watch the cartoon with Ada. Wow, this is bad. "Ada, do you watch this cartoon with Daddy?"
Ada shook her head. "No. We watch real Star Trek."
"Do you like Star Trek?" Amy ventured to ask.
"I like watching it with Dad. Star Trek is better when you're watching it with someone else."
Raising her eyebrows, Amy turned back to her suddenly profound daughter. "Did you just come up with that?"
"No. Daddy says it. He says it's why he likes watching it with you." Ada looked at her. "He says sometimes he wants you here when we watch, but you're sleeping."
Amy smiled. Apparently a lot more was going during early Saturday mornings than she previously thought. "What do you think about cereal for dinner? And we'll eat it here and watch Star Trek, just like with Daddy?"
"Oh, can we!" Ada shifted and pounced.
Chuckling, Amy got up and prepared the bowls of cereal. She had made other plans for dinner - the weekly menu was posted on the refrigerator as usual - but maybe she should experience what she was missing, to see what was on the other side of the looking-glass. Careful to pour only the minimal amount of milk into Ada's bowl, it struck Amy how very odd the cereal on the sofa ritual was for Sheldon. Normally, he was very strict about where and how Ada ate: only at the table, her bottom on the chair, no talking with her mouth full, politely asking to be excused. Was this another Saturday morning secret? Was her normally strict husband indulgent when she wasn't around?
She put out the bowl to hand it to Ada, but Ada got down on the floor by the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" Amy asked.
"I have to eat at the coffee table. It's the rule," Ada said.
What a strange evening this has been. She really felt like she was looking at things backwards and so many things she thought she knew well were things she really didn't know at all. But, instead, she said, "Of course it is."
Amy sat behind Ada and ate her own cereal. Wow, this cartoon Star Trek is really horrible. She turned her eyes toward her daughter, and watched her precisely eating her cereal and watching the television. What a unexpected creature she was becoming, now that she was definitely becoming someone. When Jacob or one of the other kids came over, they were always so noisy when they watched something, laughing or talking or squirming around. Not Ada. She was always so quiet, so still, soaking it in. This was her becoming her nature at other times, too: the quietness, the seriousness, the observation. Was this the Sheldon coming out in her? He could be very quiet, too, busy with his white board or on his computer or some other project.
Another division. It was nice to have a quiet child who would contently play by herself when asked. But should she be worried? Amy had secretly dreaded the "why" phase, knowing how insistent Sheldon could be when he wanted to understand something. But it had yet to come. Ada seemed to just absorb everything. Was Ada becoming shy? Were they being too strict, after all? Was she too isolated as an only child? What had happened to the chubby little version of her husband, who would squeal with delight at the top of her lungs when Amy would tickle her or blow raspberries on her stomach, two things Sheldon would have never allowed her to do to him?
"Mom, are you done?" Amy snapped to the present and took her last bite of cereal. She nodded at Ada, chewing. "Then you have to put your bowl down."
"Why?" Amy asked after she swallowed.
"Because then I sit on your lap. It's the order."
Well, that is definitely the Sheldon coming out in her. But she smiled and leaned forward with her bowl before welcoming the warm body on her lap. Ada fidgeted and settled. She was so tall for her age, already up to Amy's waist, and she didn't exactly fit comfortably anymore. And yet Amy was willing to struggle to contain her. This was a division Amy was already familiar with. Sometimes, she just wanted to be left alone, not to be touched and patted and poked. But there were times, and they were becoming more frequent now that Ada was getting more independent, that she missed her little dark-haired baby that would curl up on her shoulder and allow herself to be rocked to sleep.
Rubbing her daughter's back, Amy said, "You've got your top on backwards. Lean forward." Ada complied and Amy helped her take her arms out of the sleeves and rotate the top around her neck before reinserting her arms. "See the front has a saying: biologists take cellfies."
Ada reached up and touched the image before settling back in against Amy. "We should take a selfie."
Amy smiled, the pun lost on her daughter. "Where's my phone?"
"I'll get it!" Ada was up and back in a flash, holding out the coveted electronic she was so rarely allowed to touch. "Can I do it?"
"Sure." Amy shrugged slightly. It was such an unusual evening anyway, why not allow Ada this little joy? With a speed and dexterity Amy envied, the screen was in front of them in only a few seconds.
"Get closer, Mom." Amy wrapped her arms around her demanding daughter's tiny waist, hugging her and taking a deep breath of her just before the flash went off. Ada lowered the phone and seriously inspected the picture.
"Is it good?" Amy asked, peering over her shoulder.
Turning her heard, Ada looked back at her and smiled. "Can I post it to Instagram?"
Raising her eyebrows, Amy shook her head. "No, you're not allowed on my Instagram app and you know it. But how about I do it and you can watch?"
"Ookkayy," Ada huffed, but she turned and eagerly watched as Amy cropped and brightened the photo before posting it.
"What should we write as the caption?" Amy asked.
"Biologists take selfies!"
Amy chuckled. "It's a pun, Ada. Selfies is spelled wrong your pajamas; as c-e-l-l, which is the word for some of the designs on your pajamas. A cell is the smallest structural component of all living organisms." But she typed it with her thumb, anyway, for Ada: Me and my little biologist, taking a cellfie!
"Oh." Ada paused and then said, as Amy stretched around her to put her phone down, "You're a biologist, right?"
"Yes, I am." Then she frowned slightly. "Did we talk about this?"
"Dad told me. He said it's a very important job for you, especially right now."
"Ah." Sheldon had proudly discussed her current study with Ada? The revelations tonight! "And what does he do for a living?"
"He said he could control that ship on Doctor Who, but -" Ada sucked in her breath, lowered her eyes, and whispered, "- I'm not sure."
Taking a deep breath herself, Amy considered her options. Lying was, of course, not allowed. Had Sheldon actually lied to their daughter? She didn't think he would, and not just because he was a horrible lier. In all likelihood, he truly believed those powers were only a few years from being within his grasp.
"What Dad means is that he does mathematical calculations that may some day help control a ship like the TARDIS. Right now it's all a theory, and he's working to prove parts of it are true."
"Oh, okay." Ada let out a sound that Amy thought might be relief and settled back against her once more, curling up in her lap, turning her face back toward the screen.
Trying to watch more of the interminably bad Star Trek cartoon, Amy asked, "Who is your favorite character? Spock?"
Surely it would be Spock, right? Surely Sheldon had preached his virtues to Ada.
Ada shook her head. "No. Uhura."
"Really? Why?"
"Because she's pretty like you."
Amy took a breath. She knew she should use this as a teaching opportunity, that it didn't matter that Uhura was pretty. What mattered was that she was intelligent and had a career. She was a female bridge officer on the great starship Enterprise, and that was what should be admired.
"Thank you," she murmured instead.
"But Dad says it's important to be smart like you, not just pretty like you. Right, Mom?"
Amy blushed and ran her hand through Ada's hair, looking into her earnest little face. "Yes, it's very important. You should be modest about your body, but never about your mind."
"What's modest?"
"Oh." Amy thought for a moment. "I'm glad you asked. It's a very important concept. Your body is very special, and parts of it are very private. The parts we cover with clothes, remember?" Ada nodded. "So we don't show those parts off, we don't put them on display for other people. Because they belong just to us, and we only use them for private things."
"Like when we go potty," Ada added.
"Yes, exactly, I'm very happy you remember that. But our mind - well, it's also very special, but we should be proud of our minds and we should never, ever be afraid to prove our intelligence to the world. We should never pretend that we don't know something that we really do. And we must always try to work hard to make our mind grow bigger and stronger by learning new things."
"I promise," Ada whispered.
A feeling of great satisfaction filled Amy. She was never certain if she was doing this mothering thing correctly, and certainly her friends had very different parenting styles. She knew that Sheldon thought she was in denial about Ada's obvious intelligence; but rather it was that she didn't want to speak about it just yet, that she wanted to give her daughter a few years of normal, innocent childhood. But she wasn't blind to the fact that Ada was grasping ever greater concepts daily. Amy did not ever want Ada to hide her light under a basket. Instead, someday, she hoped just as much as Sheldon did that her light would shine upon the world. Nothing would make Amy prouder. However, just for a couple of more years, she wanted this little girl sitting on her lap, wearing her silly pajamas. The rest could wait.
"Ada, would you like to watch my favorite cartoon when I was your age? If Siri can find it?" Amy suddenly asked.
"Yes!" Ada bounced on her lap.
Raising her voice slightly, Amy asked, "Siri, do you have episodes of the Muppet Babies from the 1980's?"
After a minute, a list appeared the screen. Amy scanned the titles, knowing which episode she was looking for. "'Journey to the Center of the Nursery,'" she called.
As the cartoon started, Amy explained over the theme song, "My favorite episodes were the one in which they reenacted a famous novel. This one is based on Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne -"
"Shhh," Ada shushed her. "It's starting."
The sun was setting behind them, and the great room was filled with a yellow glow as it always was at this time in the summer. It lit up the top of Ada's hair, make it gleam almost golden as Amy squeezed her tighter and kissed her temple. So the Muppet Babies had not withstood the test of time - the sound and video quality were very poor - but for this one evening, Sheldon asleep in the other room, she got to hold her little girl on the sofa, watching television with her, and curling up close, like two similar peas in a very happy pod.
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