Emails still aren't working, but app notifications are. I guess that's better than nothing.
Sheldon carried his suitcase down the stairs behind Penny. "Thank you for taking me to the airport, Penny."
"Sure. I have to visit some offices near there this morning," the blonde glanced over her shoulder. "You know, I was a bit surprised when you said you were going home for Thanksgiving. Counting the time you were there over the summer, that's three trips in a year for you. Is that a record for you? I only remember you ever going home about once a year and never for a major holiday."
"I've done a lot of thinking over the past year and have decided to re-evaluate some of my priorities. One of those things is spending more time in Texas."
The pair approached Penny's car in the lot next to the building. "Good for you. I know you struggled a bit after Amy broke up with you, but I think the time away this summer did you some good. You've been happier since you got back."
Sheldon blushed, turning his head away so Penny wouldn't notice, responding "I am."
Amy paced near the bottom of the escalator next to baggage claim, watching for her boyfriend with each group of people making their way to collect their bags. She gave a small wave when she spotted him, which he excitedly returned. Sheldon was no more than six feet off the escalator when Amy ran into him, wrapping her arms around him. "Hi," she mumbled into his shirt.
"Hello. I've missed you," he rubbed his hand over her back, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. "How are you?"
"Better now that you're here. Let's get your suitcase and get out of here," Amy pulled away, but kept her arm around Sheldon's back, while his arm was firmly over her shoulders. They stood that way next to the baggage carousel until Sheldon's suitcase made its way toward them.
Sheldon retrieved his bag, and as the pair walked in the direction of the parking garage, he inquired, "Are you sure you're okay with me staying at your apartment? I don't mind getting a hotel. I don't want you to feel like I'm taking advantage of you and your sleeper sofa."
"I don't mind you staying with me. It will give us more time to see each other. Think of how much time we'd be losing together if you had a hotel. With you staying with me, we'll be able to wait to say good night until ten o'clock and greet each other first thing in the morning, after we've brushed our teeth, of course."
Exiting the parking garage, Amy glanced at the man to her right, "Do you want to get lunch before going to my apartment? A place not far from my apartment that I think you'll like."
He nodded, answering, "That sounds nice."
"What is this place?" Sheldon followed Amy into the shop she'd parked in front of on the way from the airport.
Amy grinned at the look of fascination on her boyfriend's face, "Missy recommended it. I mentioned I was looking for an independent bookstore. She said this place had really good coffee and there are old books all over. I think she thought independent bookstore meant used bookstore. I found their sandwiches to be pretty good. I'll frequently get a sandwich and spend a Sunday afternoon browsing if I want to get out of my apartment for a few hours."
The pair made their way to the counter on the side of the store, Sheldon studied the menu board hanging on the wall. "They all have literature-related names. I don't know what to choose. They all sound so good."
"Why don't you grab a table and I'll order for us? I'll order two different sandwiches and we'll split them," Amy motioned at the nearby empty tables.
Sheldon sat at the furthest table where he could watch Amy as she waited for their lunch. She brought a tray with two sandwiches and drinks. They swapped sandwich halves and enjoyed each other's company in silence as they ate until Sheldon inquired, "Missy told you about this place?"
"Yeah," Amy nodded. "We met here one of the first times we spent time together. It quickly became my favorite place in Houston. I know it's cliché for a girl like me to say a bookstore is her favorite place."
"What do you mean it's a cliché for a girl like you to like a bookstore?"
Letting out a sigh, Amy explained, "You know, the girl who doesn't get noticed, who would rather spend an evening with a book than out at a bar."
"I noticed you. From the moment we met at that coffee shop, I've always noticed you, even when it didn't seem that way. What makes this your favorite place?"
Amy stood, pushing in her chair behind her, "Something about it reminds me of everyone back in California. It feels like a little piece of home. Come on," she held her hand out for Sheldon to take. "I know you're going to love this section."
"Amy! This place is amazing," Sheldon dropped her hand when he noticed the rows of comic books she'd led him to. She leaned against the edge of a bookshelf, grinning as Sheldon inspected multiple comic books. "Oh my, they have Batman number one-thirteen. Batman travels to an alien planet where he has all of the power that Superman has on Earth. It's the only Batman under number five hundred that I'm missing. Stuart has never been able to track it down for me."
He jumped to his feet and kissed Amy's cheek, catching her off guard. "I told you this place was special. Do you wanna keep looking or are you ready to go?"
The sound of Amy's bedroom door opening prompted Sheldon to turn around, "Good morning, sleepyhead," he greeted his girlfriend.
"It's after nine. You could've woken me up," Amy looked around her apartment, noting Sheldon was still in his pajamas, but had folded the sleeper back into the sofa and piled the blankets and pillows neatly at the end of the couch. A bowl was in the sink and fresh-brewed coffee was waiting for her. "You made coffee. Thank you."
"I heard you moving in your room and thought you'd like some," he shrugged off the simple gesture.
Amy took a sip of the caramel-colored beverage before setting it on the counter. She approached Sheldon, grinning. She gently reached out and ran her fingers down his cheek. "I've never seen you with stubble. I kind of like it," she commented as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, catching him off guard.
"I, I, uh, need to get dressed."
He scurried into Amy's room and closed the door behind himself. When he hadn't emerged for several minutes after Amy heard the shower stop running, she knocked on the door separating them. "Is everything okay, Sheldon? You've been in there awhile and I'm a little worried."
Sheldon opened the door, but backed up and sat on Amy's bed rather than joining her in the living room. "You kissing me this morning made me feel things."
"What kind of things?" Amy noticed Sheldon averting his eyes, refusing to look at her. She sat next to him on her bed and started to reach for his hand as he pulled his hands into his lap, preventing Amy from touching him. "Oh. That's okay."
"Really?" Sheldon snapped his head up, looking at his girlfriend.
She silently nodded before changing the topic. "I was thinking I want to do something fun while you're here. You grew up here. Can you show me something you enjoyed when you were little?"
"I grew up in Medford, not Houston," he rolled his eyes. "My mother moved to Houston with Missy after Dad died and I moved to California. Georgie and Mandy were already there with the baby; she wanted to be closer to them. I always enjoyed the history museum; we could go there."
"Could we go to Medford? I want to see where you grew up."
He exited the room and grabbed his phone before returning. "It looks like the train museum and comic book store are both still open. I can show you where the laundry mat and video store Meemaw and Georgie owned were. Those were shut down after the tornado when word got out about the illegal gambling room they had in the back. We won't be able to go in, but we can see the house I grew up in and where Meemaw's house was across the street until it was destroyed in the tornado while Mom and I were in Germany."
"I can't wait," Amy returned Sheldon's excitement over their plans for the day. "Give me twenty minutes to shower and get dressed and we can hit the road."
Sheldon gave Amy directions on his tour of Medford, content with sharing places of importance from the car until he indicated she pull over. "This is the neighborhood where we lived when I grew up here."
"This is nice," Amy took in the small suburban street. "What house did you live in?"
He reached for her hand, walking down the sidewalk he pointed out, "That's where Meemaw's house was. It was an empty lot the last time I was here. That was less than a year after the tornado destroyed it. I loved growing up across the street from her. That," he pointed, "is the house we lived in. It was small; I shared a room with Missy until we were twelve. Small, but looking back now, I realize how full of love that house was."
"That's sweet. Thank you for bringing me here. I've learned a lot about you," Amy dropped her hand from Sheldon's to pull her phone out of her purse.
She snapped a picture of Sheldon's childhood home when he stopped her from putting her phone away, "Let's take one together." He stepped behind her as she lifted her phone in front of them. At the last second, Amy turned her head to look at Sheldon over her shoulder. Inspecting the photo on the screen, he commented, "You look happy."
"I am," she confirmed.
"Me, too," Sheldon tilted Amy's chin and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "You can't send that to the girls."
Amy smirked, "Or I do and we turn off our phones for the rest of the weekend."
"Penny would convince everyone they need to come here to find out why we took a picture together in front of my childhood home. We need to tell them, but let's wait until you're home for Christmas and can tell everyone together."
The guys were gathered for lunch in the university cafeteria when Leonard's phone rang. He glanced at the screen and commented, "It's Sheldon's mom. Wonder what crazy thing he did that she's calling about. Hi, Mrs. Cooper," he said after answering the call.
"Leonard, good. Sheldon isn't answering his phone. I've been trying to call him all morning. I know he's working, but it's not like him to not answer or call me back," Mary had a hint of panic in her voice.
Leonard furrowed his brow in confusion. "Penny took him to the airport yesterday morning. He said he was going home for Thanksgiving."
"He's not here. I haven't talked to him since Sunday."
"Okay," Leonard was racking his brain with possibilities of where his roommate might have been headed the previous morning. "I can track his phone. Give me a minute." He studied his phone, zooming the screen in and out, determining where Sheldon was.
"What's going on?" inquired Raj.
"Sheldon wasn't going home like he said, but I found his location," he shared, putting the phone back up to his ear. "His phone's location is in Texas, so he wasn't lying about where he was going. It looks like he's east of Houston, though. I'll see if I can get a hold of him or if he said anything to Penny and get back to you."
"Thank you, Leonard. I'll keep trying to reach him, as well," Mary replied, ending the call.
Howard snickered, commenting, "Looks like Sheldon's keeping secrets from us. Wonder what's got him running away to Texas and lying to us about it."
Ignoring the engineer's comment, Leonard quickly called his wife, "Hey, did Sheldon say anything when you took him to the airport yesterday? Mary just called me because he's not answering his phone. She hasn't talked to him since Sunday and he didn't say anything about coming home to her."
"No, he kept talking about how he re-evaluated his priorities since Amy broke up with him and how he wants to spend more time with his family, even though they're far apart," explained Penny before gasping. "I have an idea of what he's doing. You keep trying to call him. I'm going to try, too."
Penny's fingers flew across her phone keyboard as she typed a text to her best friend, "I know you probably haven't talked to Sheldon recently, but he had me take him to the airport yesterday morning saying he was going home for Thanksgiving, but Mary hasn't heard from him since Sunday. Leonard tracked his phone and it shows he's in Texas. If you happen to hear from him, please have him call Mary."
The secret couple was walking through the Medford train museum when Amy got Penny's message. "Uh, oh. Your mother is looking for you and Leonard told her you were here. I think you're going to have to go home for Thanksgiving."
"But we're spending the weekend together. Just the two of us."
"That was the plan," Amy interlaced her fingers with Sheldon's, looking up at him with soft eyes. "You told Leonard you were going home for Thanksgiving. Your mother called him because you weren't answering your phone and he told her you were in Texas. You need to make her think you were trying to surprise her. Or we can come clean and tell your mother you came to Houston to see me."
Sheldon shook his head, "She'll ask if we sinned once she hears I'm staying with you. I guess that means I'm going home for Thanksgiving. We won't be able to see each other once I go to her house."
"We can have a special date night tonight. I'll be back in California for Christmas in less than a month. I'm staying at Penny's apartment again. We managed to find ways to spend time together when I was there for Bernadette's baby shower and that was just a weekend. I'll be home for almost two weeks, so we'll have more time we can spend together. Plus we're telling everyone when I'm there so we won't need to sneak around anymore."
Amy poked her head out of her bedroom into the living room to find Sheldon had pulled the sleeper bed from the sofa and carefully arranged the blankets and pillows on it while she was brushing her teeth. "The bathroom's all yours," she announced before retreating to her room to finish preparing for bed. She was pulling down the blankets on her bed when she felt Sheldon watching her after he finished in the bathroom. Amy turned to find her boyfriend standing against the door leading to the living room, staring at the floor in front of him. "Is everything okay, Sheldon?"
"You can say no and I won't protest or question your decision, but do you think? Would you be open to?" The physicist struggled to complete his question while looking at his feet.
"Sheldon," Amy stepped in front of him. She tilted his chin up with her finger until she could look him in the eye. "It's just us. You can ask me whatever you want and it doesn't leave this apartment."
Confidence suddenly filled Sheldon as he smiled and saw the concern on Amy's face. "You can say no and I'll happily spend the night on the couch, but would you be open to us sharing a bed tonight? Just sleeping. With us losing the next three days together, I'd like to spend as much time next to you as possible."
"Share, sleep, next," Amy was now the one who struggled to form a complete sentence.
Sheldon gently kissed the stammering woman on the kiss, "I shouldn't have asked. Good night," he was starting to turn away when Amy grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him into her bedroom. "Are you sure?" he mumbled as she motioned for him to get under the covers next to her.
"Get over here," she was quiet until Sheldon was lying beside her. Rolling onto her right side to look at the man in her bed, she whispered, "I love you."
I wrote the line about the gambling room being shut down after the tornado weeks ago- long before last week's Young Sheldon where that actually happened.
I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter I've ever written. It's just shy of 3000 words, about double what a chapter usually is for me. I had even more in this chapter, but decided to split it into two chapters. Yes, that means the next chapter will be a continuation of Thanksgiving weekend.