This Bed (takes places after Weightless - the 2051 night)

Her husband, still not fully gray, although he was currently enjoying some scholarly gray temples, looked around their home, boxes labeled in Amy's neat script. "I wish we didn't have to leave."

"We don't have to leave," Amy corrected him. "It just seems the right time, now that we've both retired." Sheldon grunted, still chaffing under the non-existent yoke of leisure. "More importantly, we'll be close to Ada and Jacob and our grandchildren, and that is very important to me. And to you, too, I know."

It is a phrase that has become overused with time, but it remains true. Amy knows he is gone even before she wakes. The bed feels too large, too expansive, too cold, too lonely without his presence. Rubbing her eyes, she sits up slowly on her elbows.

"Computer," she murmurs, "what time is it?"

"Two-oh-six a.m."

"Lights, then, at 30%."

The room lightens to dim glow and Amy swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Once glance tells her the cats are gone, too. She grabs her robe from the hook on the back of the door and shuffles out to the great room, dodging moving boxes. His silhouette is dark against the city lights behind him. In all the years they've lived here, several newer and taller buildings have surrounded them.

"Sheldon?" she whispers as she approaches. The cats that were flanking him turn to make their little welcome trills in her direction. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Yes."

She smiles at his honesty and starts to wrap her arms around his waist from behind. In so doing, her hand brushes something in his hands and she stops. "What do you have?"

He shifts in front of her, just enough so he can pass her what he is holding, but he does not turn around to watch her. Amy squints and says, "Computer, lights at full." Once the lights are up, she realizes it is two old-fashioned photographs. She smiles softly at the first, one of their wedding photos; not the one she has kept on her desk for years, first at Caltech and then here at home when she retired, of her smiling with abandonment and Sheldon looking surprised. No, this is the second photo Raj took that day, of Sheldon passing the bouquet of sunflowers to her, their hands meeting around the stems, their eyes meeting over the top. The second photo makes her heart skip a beat. It is the two of them on the hospital bed, Ada feeding at her breast. Two photos Sheldon never wanted taken and yet he is holding at this very moment.

"Where did these come from?" she asks.

"I always kept them in my desk at work. But of course I brought them home last month. I didn't want to lose them in the move."

"Oh, Sheldon." She has to bat her eyelashes to keep the tears at bay. Now she does wrap her arms all the way around his slender frame. "You sentimental old fool."

"I was thinking about this place when we first moved in," he says softly, placing his hands over hers on his waist. "How happy you were, how beautiful you were."

He woke in moment of confusion. The bed felt so much larger and softer than he remembered and there was a strange scratching sound. It only took a second, but then he understood. The new home, the new bed. He smiled to himself, looking at the closed blinds, enjoying the view. The view he will enjoy for the rest of his life. But what was that noise?

Rolling over, he raised his eyebrows at what he saw. Amy, her hair wet and dripping down her back, her face pink and free of make-up. She was wearing a tee shirt that didn't fully cover her expanding stomach, which meant it was one of Penny's old shirts, given to her as a necessity just after the fire. The pair of black maternity leggings she had found to wear around the house stretched up and over the baby, and the combination of such tight clothing left her entire form on display. Sheldon grinned wider even as she was oblivious to him, digging through one of the moving boxes, and he could easily watch her bottom shake with movement.

Yesterday, as they were moving in, Bernadette had told Amy how lucky she was to be at the "cute" stage of pregnancy, when it was obvious she was pregnant and not just overweight but not so large yet "that you look and feel like an elephant." Sheldon had no idea if that was true, but he couldn't imagine Amy looking unattractive and certainly not while she was pregnant. He enjoyed the view for a bit more, the curves of her new body, the fresh cleanliness of her face.

Finally, after a quiet but frustrated growl from her, he got out of bed and circled around to her. "Amy?"

She looked up and over her shoulder. "Sorry I woke you. I was looking for the socks. I thought I wrote socks on the outside of the box, but I guess not. Pregnancy brain." She shook her head and bent back down again.

"You're up early. You should be sleeping in while you can."

"No." Another shake of the head. "There's still a lot to put away. More dishes to run, and I have to wash the new towels before you shower. I just used one and got lint all over myself; you'd hate that." He was about to tell her not overexert herself when she looked back up, turning and standing upright this time. "I'm so excited to finally have all my own things to organize!"

He grinned at her early morning enthusiasm. If he had known how beautifully it would make her eyes glow, he would have bought her a new home years ago. Why was he always so resistant to change, at least when it came to Amy? He reached out for her hand. "I'm excited, too."

Pulling her nearer to him, angling his body slightly to allow him to get closer to her, he kissed her softly as his free hand reached over to touch her stomach. "She's gone quiet, I think she's sleeping," Amy mumbled into his lips.

"It's okay." Using his index finger, he traced the edge of her tight tee shirt, finding his way to the strip of skin just above her yoga pants.

"Watch my belly button, it tickles."

It was not her belly button he was after, and he snaked his hand up under her shirt, finding her breast, running his fingertips over her thin house bra until he felt her nipple harden. Once Amy moaned, Sheldon pulled her back in for another kiss, this one deep and pulsing with desire. Breaking the kiss, he leaned closer to her ear. "Yes?"

"Yes."

"Did you just get out of the shower?"

"Yes . . ."

Instead of replying with words, he softly gripped the sides of her waist and turned her around, so she was leaning against a taller box. He bent down into a kiss, working his hands to her waist band, pulling down on her leggings, only pausing to catch the sides of her underwear, too, as his hands passed them, helping her lift her bottom up to aid in the disrobing of his wife.

"Oh, Sheldon," Amy moaned, gripping the sides of the box and throwing her head back. Dipping to his knees, he lowered the leggings and slid them off her ankles. Then, picking up one of her feet, he started on her instep, kissing slowly, climbing higher, relishing the sound of her breath, coming harder and faster with anticipation, his kisses a metronome for her desire.

It was there, then, what Sheldon sought: the very center of his Amy. He loved her there gently, slowly, his lips curling into a smile when they could. Her leg was over his shoulder, and he could feel her heel moving against his back every time her foot contracted with pleasure. The only negative about this position at that time in Amy's life was that her face was hidden now behind her alluring belly. Glancing up, he took his free hand and traced the darkening linea nigra, stopping just at the edge of her flattening and newly sensitive belly button. He didn't have time to wonder if she would bat his fingertips away before she climaxed around him, her heel thumping especially hard against his back, her thighs squeezing his head, and, he thought, even her stomach pulling a bit away from him.

One soft kiss on her hip and he rose. "Good morning and welcome home," he whispered.

Amy's eyes were at their most magnificent after she experienced an orgasm and they dazzled him with their brilliance. "I'll say," she panted. She lifted her arms off the edge of the cardboard moving box and wrapped them around his neck. "Should we -"

"I have to wash my face." Sheldon frowned at himself, not having meant to blurt it out so harshly like that. "I'm sorry," he added weakly.

"Go." She ticked with her head. He paused, just a second, and then she smiled softly. Dear Amy, she understood.

Rushing in the bathroom, throwing off his pajamas while he was at it, Sheldon hoped the moment hadn't been lost to his poor planning. He was usually more prepared when he decided to love Amy in that fashion so that there would be minimal interruptions. He had tried once not to wash his face, but then Amy had tried to kiss him and his sudden pulling out had killed the mood more than any swipe with a washcloth ever had.

There was no clear answer when he returned to the bedroom. Amy was in bed, curled up on her side, a few extra pillows arranged around her for support, and Sheldon could have believed she was settling in for a post-orgasmatic nap. But his hopes raised when he noticed she had not put any clothes back on; instead, she had removed them all and was lying there naked. He walked quietly to the edge of the bed and looked down at her form, everything so rounded: the softer shapes of her face lately, the new fullness to her breasts, the darker circles of her areoles, the swooping curve of her bottom, and, most especially, the beauty of their growing baby. Pi and Amy, both in all their beautiful variations.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to him. "Are you joining me?"

Sheldon licked his lips. He did not want to misread this situation. "Are you returning to bed?"

"Not for sleep. Come." She lifted her hand off her stomach and he took it, carefully crawling onto the bed around her.

Amy started to shift, and Sheldon put his hand on her hip. "No, stay like that."

"Ah, yes," she smiled, turning her head back so her profile was visible once more, "you do like to spoon in the mornings."

"I was thinking - could we do it like this?" he asked, looking down at her. Amy looked back up at him in surprise. "I know it's unusual, but I love the way you look, curled up like that."

"Okay." Not surprised that she understood exactly what he meant, Amy turned her face away from him again and lowered her chin some, curling up even a little tighter.

It was not easy, that perpendicular approach. She had to straighten her legs anyway, so he could reach her, and Amy's new size meant he struggled for somewhere to put his right hand. But he managed to get himself aligned correctly, and he leaned close to her ear. "Tell me if you don't like this or if it's uncomfortable."

Breathing out deeply as he found his way into her, he paused, letting her shift her hip. He tried a careful, slow thrust. It had a been very long time since he'd experienced Amy at this angle. "How is this?" he whispered.

"It's good," she said.

It was more than he could have imagined: the tightness of her body as it spiraled around her abdomen, the tightness of her body as it held him. He loved watching her skin, pale and stretching over her magnificent form but gradually flushing with heat. It was not mathematically the golden spiral formed by the Fibonacci sequence, but it was, in that moment, far more radiant than any spiral galaxy he'd ever seen or theorized about.

Wanting Amy to feel that radiance along with him, he shifted his weight to one arm and reached to caress her breast. He said, just before he knew from her breath that she was going to climax along with him, "I am so happy with you, in this house, in this bed."

"How happy you were, how beautiful you were." Before Amy can even raise her eyebrows, he corrects himself. "You still are, you know. That beautiful."

She chuckles into his back. "It's okay, Sheldon. I am well aware of the ravishes of time. Thirty-seven is in my distant past now."

"No." He turns sharply in her arms, loosening them as a consequence. "It's a different beauty, of course. You're not pregnant. But you are just as happy to leave this house as you were to move into it, and you are never more beautiful than when you are happy."

Blushing at this, Amy says, "I am happy." Then she adds, "And you are never more handsome than when you try something new."

There was nothing unduly special about the night. They were back from London and they settled back into their rhythms of summer. It was not a Date Night or even Book Club Night. Dinner, while filling and nutritious, was not anything new or inventive. Ada had a little model to put together for summer enrichment camp; but instead of an adorable half hour between her and her father, she had insisted on putting it together herself which left Sheldon looking disappointed and a little sad. And he was wearing a Captain America tee shirt, not even one of her favorite henley shirts.

Yet, when she had gone to read in her own bed after reading with Ada that evening, she found herself looking away from her iKindle, lost in thoughts of him. And those thoughts are not pure in nature. She could not help but imagine the way he walked, those long, sure strides. The beauty of his fingers, how skilled he was at using them. The blue of his eyes, purer and more radiant than any stained glass. The soft alabaster of his skin, more gentle than any statue.

A smile teasing at her lips, she lifted her iKindle again and sent him a message. "Come to bed."

"Are you ill?"

"No. Come to bed."

"It is not yet ten o'clock."

Amy rolled her eyes. Never mind that she was essentially texting her husband in the next room. "Don't be obtuse. Bring your naked body to our bed."

There was no response and Amy strained her ears. She thought, perhaps, she head a faint shuffle down the hallway, but she wasn't sure. Then she definitely heard rustling noises in the hallway. What was that? Should she get up and investigate? What if Ada had gotten up because she was ill?

Before she could get out of bed, he suddenly appeared at the doorway of their bedroom. All six feet and one inches of his porcelain body, naked and already semi-erect. "You rang?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Hoooooo," Amy breathed out. Then her senses returned. "Get in here! What if Ada opens her door and sees you?"

"She's already asleep. I checked." Nonetheless, he stepped inside their bedroom proper and shut the door behind him.

"Now, little lady," he said, taking off his glasses, padding over to his side of the bed and nonchalantly stretching out on it, "I have brought my naked body to your bed. And yet you are still fully clothed. This hardly seems fair. What do you propose?"

"I want to look at you. All of you. Admire you." She shifted to put her iKindle on her bedside table. "Lie on your stomach."

"My stomach?" His brows dipped. "Wait, I thought this was sexual. It's not time for our monthly mole and freckle inspections."

"I know."

He paused in obvious confusion but then nodded and rolled over for her. Leaning over him, she gently ran her palm along his back, the largest expanse of his beautiful skin, down and over the curve of his buttocks, still tight even at his age. She trailed over the back of his legs, covered in their dark hair, and his feet twitched when her fingertips brushed against the back of his knees. Even the soles of his feet, the skin wrinkling, were somehow appealing tonight. Sheldon remained silent throughout.

"Roll over," she whispered hoarsely, and he complied.

Oh, the body of Sheldon Cooper! Time had been unfairly kind to him, as he was one of those lucky men who both seemed not to age and yet became ever more handsome as they do. Although he was still lanky, he had filled out from when she first met him and found him so skinny that it was alarming. His skin, thanks to his stringent sunscreen application, remained pale and luminous, especially there in the half-light of their bedroom. Yes, there were those moles he worried about - for some reason she found the ones on his neck and by his ears especially charming - but they existed as though they were stars upon his own Milky Way. Amy worked her way up his body this time, past his long toes and feet, up the hair-covered legs, the dimples of his knees. The leg hair suddenly ceased, giving way to another patch of neatly groomed hair that she chose to ignore for the moment. She took just the tip of her index finger and traipsed with the barest touch straight up the part of him that was most on display.

"Amy," he moaned softly.

"Shhh, in a minute." The soft flesh of his waist, the trial of hair leading up to his belly button. Then his stomach. While perhaps it was true that he did not possess the chiseled abs of a body-builder, Amy envied its flatness, what a soft plain it created. Up to the small, scant patch of chest hair, so in contrast to his legs, then over to toy with his nipples in just he way she knew he liked. His neck was so long, the tendons often popping and stretching when he was surprised or confused or just proving a point. Those lips! Pink and soft. The delicate skin of his cheek. His eyebrows, which always threatened to become untamed and grew in far too much. Sheldon had to trim them weekly to try and reign them in and there were still times Amy had to gently suggest that he allow her to assist in some plucking.

Just beneath those eyebrows, his beautiful blue eyes were staring at her. "Amy?" he asked softly once her hand found its way into his dark and still full head of hair.

Instead of answering, she reached for the hem on her summer nightgown and lifted the fabric over her head, tossing it aside. With difficultly on the bed, she shimmied out of her panties and threw them away, too. In one swift motion, she straddled him, holding herself up on her knees so that she won't crush the most delicate part of him. Swallowing, she applied the same carcasses to her own body, starting at her forehead and moving down, listening to the sounds of Sheldon's breath, especially when it shallowed as she encircled her own nipple, feeling it harden further in desire.

She watched his pupils steadily grow ever wider, and almost all of the blue was lost when she dipped her fingers down, threatening to touch herself. Stopping, she smiled at him coyly, "Or would you rather?"

"Oh, Lordy, I thought you'd never ask!"

The huge burst of laughter that poured our of her lungs seemed doubly loud in the room that had so recently been filled only with silence and beautiful longing. But it was interrupted by a gasp and shiver of pleasure as Sheldon's fingers made good on her offer. "Sheldon," she moaned, closing her eyes. But his fingers were not working to bring her to climax, they are exploring, taunting, teasing. "Sheldon, please," Amy whispered, her voice husky with desire.

Without a word, Sheldon trapped her waist and lowered her suddenly, almost harshly, but she relished the sound of his growl which indicated that was how he wanted it. Smiling coyly down at him, she started moving above him slowly, teasing him this time. Then, leaning forward, she took his hands off her hips and intertwined her fingers with his above his head, her nose almost touching his as she stared at him and set a rapid pace.

It did not take long for either one of them, and just as she threw her head back in pleasure, Amy thought about how happy she was to be home with him, in this bed.

"Here." Sheldon takes the photographs out of her hands and then walks the two steps the dining table to set them down, right next to the sticker that says Sell. It is too large for their new apartment in the retirement community, as they now face the moment in everyone's advanced years in which downsizing become a necessity. For a second, Amy remembers all the laughter and the tears at that table. And the one time they made love there. Lost in her memories, her melancholy about leaving this home they've made together, but, especially, lost in the look in his eyes, Amy does not notice there was a third photograph, too, stuck to the second.

Sheldon puts out his hand and she takes it, the words unspoken and needless between them, and they return to their bed.

It does not happen nearly as often as it once did. It is not that the love is lost, not by any means; it is just that gradually, the pleasure that comes from snuggling up to him in bed has become as desirous as other things they may do there. It is a different type of pleasure, but no less pleasurable. But it still does happen, from time to time, and she loves his aging body just as much now as she always has.

And this time, he whispers, just before he knows from her breath that she is going to climax along with him, "I have been so happy with you, in this house, in this bed."

THE END-ISH

Thank you in advance for your reviews!

Even though this is the end of this particular story, the Shamyverse as a whole is not finished. The Anniversary Evolution: Year Fifty takes place after this After Dark chapter. Please enjoy!