Author's Note:

I'm back!

Most of this chapter was written in pieces while I was unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo last month. It wasn't my main project for the month, but it sort of took over towards the end. It just took me until now to feel good enough about it to post it. I borrowed some lines from a couple of my favorite early Shamy episodes for this one, I'm sure you'll recognize them. Hopefully you all will like it.

Thanks as always to my beta reader Stark for looking this over, and also a special thank you to everyone on tumblr who cheered me on last month.

(Reminder you can find me Shamy-blogging at fort-cozy-mcblanket where I also sometimes post fic previews and things.)

Chapter Four

"So are we going to talk about what happened last night?" Howard asked as soon as he sat down at the cafeteria table the following morning.

"I don't know. Sheldon, are we going to talk about last night?" Leonard redirected the question. Sheldon looked up from his cheese Danish to see three pairs of eyes trained on him.

"I don't see what there is to talk about," he answered. "Dr. Fowler and I did not find the dinner arrangements suitable at the Athenaeum, so we dined at the Cheesecake Factory instead."

"And nothing happened?" Raj asked.

"Nothing." Sheldon's left eye twitched.

"That's not what Penny told me," Leonard said. "She said you two were getting pretty cozy."

Sheldon ignored the incredulous exclamations from Howard and Raj, speaking over them. "Penny was too busy dropping other people's orders, she doesn't know what she saw."

"What did she say exactly?" Howard asked Leonard.

Sheldon stayed quiet while Leonard gave a recap of the previous evening as told by Penny, inwardly steeling himself for the inevitable barrage of questions. Truthfully, he was still trying to understand what happened as well.

When Dr. Fowler had touched him, he froze up. Alarm bells went off in his head, but he was too shocked to move away. Then Penny had dropped that tray of food and caused enough noise for that whole section of the dining room to look her way, the two of them included, and the spell had been broken. Dr. Fowler had apologized after, seemingly realizing her mistake, but then Leonard suddenly appeared at their table and Sheldon took the opportunity to flee with him before anything else could happen.

It hadn't been easy dodging Leonard's questions on the car ride home, but he managed, and then locked himself in his bedroom for the rest of the night (aside from his allotted bathroom time). The more he played the memory over in his mind, though, the more confused he became. The way Dr. Fowler's tongue darted out to lick her finger, then her gentle touch so close to his mouth. It made him feel weird and shivery inside. That night, he saw her green eyes in his dreams.

Maybe it was a brain parasite.

"Son of a bitch," Howard said, returning him to the present. He was looking straight at him. "Even after your blunder at the fundraiser, she still picked you."

"What?"

"Not cool, dude," Raj said. "You heard me call dibs."

"Oh, come on," Howard turned on him. "Were you actually attracted to her?"

"No, I guess not," Raj said, shrugging. "But she's got money, I like that in a woman."

"I don't understand how the rest of us messed up so bad that we made Sheldon look good," Leonard said.

"That's not the biggest question we have to ask ourselves right now," Howard said.

"It's not?" Leonard asked. "Because I haven't stopped asking it since they disappeared together."

"No," Howard paused dramatically, his breakfast fork poised in the air. He looked between the three of them before pointing it at Sheldon. "It's whether or not Sheldon's going to take one for the team this time."

"Don't be ridiculous, I will be doing no such thing," he said. "Unlike the rest of you, I'm capable of making significant contributions to our field with my brain alone. There's no need to get the rest of my body involved."

"Fine, guess it's back up to me then," Raj said.

"Did you not hear my starting line? Don't be ridiculous," Sheldon repeated himself. "Dr. Fowler found your romantic advances disturbing," he turned to look at Howard, "and she found your educational background laughable," he turned to look at Leonard, "and she just plain found you tedious."

"Looks like we're back to you then, Sheldon," Leonard said.

"It's interesting how you say you don't want to sleep with her, but you clearly don't want the rest of us to do it either," Raj pointed out.

"Yeah, what's that about, Sheldon?" Howard jumped in.

"Yeah, remember at the last fundraiser you were practically begging me to sleep with Mrs. Latham to get that funding?" Leonard asked (and Sheldon rolled his eyes because of course he remembered). "What's different this time?"

For one horrifying moment, Sheldon's mind went blank.

The guys had a point. What was different this time? Nothing, really. But the thought of Dr. Fowler getting close to any of his present company was repellant. He tried to picture it, tried to say it would be fine, because logically it should be, but something deep inside him rebelled.

And what of their other suggestion? That Dr. Fowler chose him?

That made his brain parasite act up again.

"Gentlemen, Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler is far too intelligent to fall for the same tricks that worked for Mrs. Latham and the other lesser minds that populate the university's donor pool," Sheldon finally managed to speak again.

"And you know this from skimming over some of her old publications and one dinner with her?" Howard questioned.

"We spoke about our dating habits last night. Like me, she believes the practice is a waste of time."

"Wasn't she engaged?" Leonard asked. "She must have dated before."

"The loss of her fiancé must have broken her heart, poor thing," Raj said. "Sheldon, you have the chance to renew her faith in love." His moony expression was too much for Sheldon to take.

"Please, I don't know where you get these preposterous ideas. I say it's time we put this topic to rest and discuss something that's actually interesting," Sheldon said.

"Such as?" Leonard asked.

Sheldon looked around, scrambling for something else to say to distract his friends. All the talk about Dr. Fowler and the previous evening was leaving him frazzled. Finally, his eyes rested once again on the barely touched cheese Danish on his plate.

"Oh, I know! How about this, in a world where mankind is ruled by a giant intelligent beaver, what food is no longer consumed?"

Howard, Leonard, and Raj all looked at him like he was insane. Raj eventually spoke up again.

"So did Amy ever give you her number, or—?"

"You know, on second thought, I think it's past time for us to get to work."

Sheldon stood up from the table and stormed off, leaving his food and his friends behind.

Amy blamed her mother.

None of this would have happened if her mother hadn't done the exact same thing to her for countless meals while she was growing up. Instead of just telling her she had something on her face, she always reached over and wiped it off herself. And the worst part was, Amy always hated it too. But apparently the action was ingrained in her.

More than anything, she was embarrassed by her behavior. It was supposed to be a business dinner, and yet she had allowed herself to act in such an informal, overly familiar manner. It wasn't like her. She didn't want Dr. Cooper to get the wrong idea.

Dr. Cooper . . .

Amy could not have picked a worse person. He had already accused her of carrying a disease, and she just had to go ahead and touch him without asking. He had probably lapsed into a catatonic state once he got into Dr. Hofstadter's car.

But what she really, truly did not understand was why she cared.

Dr. Cooper was arrogant and dismissive. He automatically assumed he was the smartest person in the room. He was stubborn and suffered from a severe case of hypochondria. He insulted her to her face and had to be forced by others to give an apology. He was impressed with her work. He was brilliant at mental calculations. He was tall and had blue eyes and didn't look half bad in a suit . . .

Amy shook herself out of her musings.

Seriously, what was wrong with her? Her thoughts were not her own, that was for sure. It was like she was infected by an alien parasite. Maybe Sheldon was right to be so concerned about cleanliness. Maybe she was some sort of carrier after all.

She preemptively sent an email to President Siebert thanking him for arranging the dinner and made sure to include some generic niceties regarding Caltech's physics department, then crossed her fingers and hoped that would be enough to keep him from calling her again about it. She wasn't sure how well she would be able to lie if confronted. Her only other worry was that one of the guys would rat her out for ditching them, but that seemed unlikely. It would only put them in the awkward position of having to explain to Siebert why they drove her away.

The rest of the day was spent catching up on some journal backlogs and another call with her mother. After hanging up with her, with the echo of her nagging still in her ears and her blood pressure at what she could only assume was a record high, Amy decided she needed to have some fun. It wasn't normally her thing, but she had received a newsletter from a bookstore advertising an appearance by Dr. Brian Greene to promote his new book that evening, and she decided to go. Even if she did not respect Dr. Greene's work, he would at least be good for a few laughs, and there were certainly worse ways to pass a few hours.

Or so she had thought.

At the book store she tucked herself into a seat at the back of the group in the hopes that the other patrons would stick more towards the front, but as more and more people filed in it became clear she would not have much space to herself. Still, this didn't bother her too much, until a familiar lanky figure suddenly emerged from between the bookcases.

She could tell the exact moment Dr. Cooper noticed her, it was just milliseconds after she saw him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her with wide, panicked eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to turn around and leave, he even looked back over his shoulder like he was searching for an escape route, but more people were coming in behind him, impatiently waiting for him to move, and he gave way to social pressure. The seat beside her was one of the last few available, and he shuffled towards it with all the enthusiasm of an inmate towards the electric chair.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him as he sat down, ignoring the heat in her face. "I would not have pegged you for a Brian Greene fan."

"I could ask you the same thing," he shot back. "This is a promotion for a physics book, and from my understanding that's not your favorite field."

"Sometimes it's nice to goof off and do something silly," she said. "Now you."

"It seems we're here for the same reason," he said, and she could see some of the tension leave his shoulders. "Have you heard how he dumbs down Werner Heisenberg? You may actually believe you're in a comedy club."

Before she could respond, Dr. Greene appeared at the front of the room and called for everyone's attention. While he began speaking about his new book, she sat back in her chair and snuck careful glances at Dr. Cooper from the corner of her eye. He seemed more relaxed, as if the prospect of watching a perceived lesser mind with smug superiority made him forget their previous evening. If only she could do the same. She made sure to keep her hands glued to her knees.

"Is our universe the only universe? You see, there's a growing belief among scientists like me that ours may only be one among many universes populating a gigantic cosmos," Dr. Greene was saying.

'And of all the book promotions in all the bookstores in all the universes, Dr. Sheldon Cooper walks into the same one as me,' Amy thought to herself.

"In The Hidden Reality, I explore this possibility without presuming any knowledge of mathematics or physics on the part of the reader," Dr. Greene continued.

"Hysterical," Dr. Cooper whispered to her, almost making her jump.

"You can think about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle much like the special order menu that you find in certain Chinese restaurants, where you have dishes in column A and other dishes in column B, and if you order the first dish in column A, you can't order the corresponding dish in column B. That's sort of like the Uncertainly Principle."

"Ba-dum-bump," Sheldon whispered to her again, leaning towards her a bit. This time she met his eyes and they shared a small conspiratorial smile. He was right, Dr. Greene's take on Heisenberg was laughable.

The rest of Dr. Greene's lecture went in much the same way, and Amy found herself relaxing too. At one point Sheldon stood up to ask a question which doubled as thinly-veiled mockery, and Amy had to bite her lip to keep from chuckling audibly when Dr. Greene didn't catch on.

"What do you think, Dr. Cooper? Should we purchase our copies of The Hidden Reality now before they sell out?" she asked him when the talk wrapped up, a smile playing on her lips.

"Fat chance of that happening," he replied, missing her sarcasm.

While the majority of the audience clamored to get their books signed, the two of them slipped out.

"Did you know Leonard refused to attend this lecture with me?" he told her as they exited the store. "He even tried to get out of dropping me off."

"Some people just don't know how to have a good time," she said.

"Indeed."

He paused and for a moment they stood side by side on the sidewalk, looking out at the cars in the parking lot and the sun setting in the sky. Amy wasn't sure what to make of it, the previous night and now this evening, whether she was free to take her leave or if she owed him some further acknowledgement.

"Dr. Fowler, see if you can tell me this," he said suddenly, breaking her thoughts. "In a world where mankind is ruled by a giant intelligent beaver, what food is no longer consumed?"

"Easy, cheese Danish," she answered, barely needing to think it over. "Why?"

Dr. Cooper didn't respond, but he gave her the biggest smile he'd ever seen from him.

End Note:

I know the whole Counterfactuals cheese Danish thing is factually incorrect, but I decided to use it anyway. It fit too well. If canon can do it then so can I, right?