"We're friends, Sheldon. Unless you don't want to be."
Sheldon perked up at what Amy was implying. "Amy, you asked to get back together last year and I told you I needed to just be your friend. I want you to know I've done a lot of thinking over the past year and I've come to understand your frustrations with our relationship. I'm sorry for not being the boyfriend you deserved."
Smiling to herself, that was a sentence Amy had been hoping to hear for fourteen months, and felt the need to apologize as well. "It's okay, Sheldon. I should've talked to you about how I was feeling. I'm sorry for the way I handled things."
"How would it work if I don't want us to be friends anymore?"
"Well," the woman started, thinking of two ways to answer the question, before deciding to go with the joke answer, "We'd go back to brief interaction when we run into one another while with our friends or when we end up sitting next to each other on an airplane."
She laughed at the gasp that came through the phone. "That's not what I mean, Amy, and you know it!" Sheldon's confidence suddenly diminished as he shifted in his spot. "I know we're friends, but I don't want to be just friends."
"No," Amy suddenly found herself saying.
Immediately regretting what he had suggested, Sheldon apologized. "I'm sorry. I'll let you go. You can forget I ever brought this up."
"I want to have this conversation, but I don't want it to be over the phone. I'm going to hang up and call you on Skype. It will take a minute to start my computer. Just trust me, okay?"
"Okay. I'll see you in a minute. ' Sheldon was positioning himself at his desk before the call ended.
His nerves were at an all-time high until the familiar tone of an incoming Skype call emanated from his computer's speakers. "Hello, Amy." he grinned.
Amy blushed and returned the smile. "Hi, Sheldon. Before you say anything else, you should know I've never heard of long-term long-distance working for anyone," Amy knew if they were in the same room and not halfway across the country from one another, they would be having a very different conversation.
"It's never been us."
Amy blinked back a tear, not wanting Sheldon to sense the emotion she was feeling at the moment. "You think we'll be the ones it just works out for?"
"Yes. Maybe. I don't know, but I think we should try and I think you feel the same. I don't know how it would work because you're there and I'm here, but I'd be interested in discussing what our getting back together would look like."
"I love you, Sheldon," mumbled Amy, choking on her emotions. "I want to do this, I really do, but we're fifteen hundred miles apart."
"One thousand, five hundred, and forty-seven miles. I'm serious about this. Spending time with you while I was at East Texas Tech made me realize I made a mistake last Thanksgiving," the physicist admitted, "I've been home for a week and a half and I've missed you for every one of those eleven days. Not having Friday dinner with you to look forward to has been miserable."
"I admit I've missed spending time with you, as well. I want to ask you something," Amy studied her ex-boyfriend's face through her computer screen as he nodded ever so slightly. "You're asking to get back together because you really want to and not just because you miss the routine you developed while in Texas?"
Sheldon shook his head, giving Amy the answer she'd wanted to hear almost nine months ago on Thanksgiving, "I'm ready to be your boyfriend again, if you'll have me, Amy Farrah Fowler."
"Okay. I'm in. I'm going to go into this very cautiously, though. How do you suggest we make this work?"
Pondering the logistics of a long-distance relationship, he suggested, "We resume regular daily phone calls and texting. We resume weekly date nights, either via Skype or longer phone calls. We plan trips to see one another, maybe we can aim for every six weeks or so?" Hearing his friends' voices in the hallway, Sheldon grabbed his laptop from his desk and scurried down the hall to his bedroom.
"Where are you going, Sheldon?" Amy watched the computer bob up and down as it was carried through the apartment.
Settling on his bed, he asked, "Leonard and Penny just got home. I think we should wait to tell everyone. I want us to ease into this without the pressure they'll inevitably put on us. Amy, can we keep this to ourselves until we determine if this is going to work? No need for our friends to know, just to have to explain what happened if it doesn't work out."
"I agree we need a chance to figure this out on our own. You're sure about this? We're trying this, but keeping it on the down-low for a little while?"
"Let's try this for one month, only calling and Skyping before we arrange any in-person visits. No need to spend money on flights for us to figure out this isn't going to work after two weeks."
"A one-month trial it is. Then we arrange visits and tell our friends."
Beaming at knowing he and Amy were making strides toward getting back together, Sheldon decided to make one request that he was unsure what Amy's response would be. "Would you be open to a relationship agreement to help us navigate this? I can draft something for you to review and we can make any changes together. I want to do this differently than I've done in the past."
"I look forward to seeing what you come up with," Amy was amiable to his request.
"I need to go. I'll talk to you later. I love you." Sheldon ended the call and halfway across the country, Amy closed her laptop and twirled around her living room, full of elation over what had just happened.
Happy Tuesday! I'm off today so thought I'd post early.