T-shirt

Amy pulled over next to the donation bin, shifted into park, and took a deep breath. It was late and the parking lot was deserted, just as she expected. Still, to be safe, she turned off her headlights and left the car running for a quick getaway.

She had spent several hours earlier that day helping Sheldon sort through and bag up his old clothing. He explained to her in detail how he did this every three years, how it was important to refresh one's wardrobe, how they also needed to create an itemized list to use for filing taxes, and how no, this could not be rescheduled for a different day when they weren't planning on spending time together.

Amy was good though. Amy was resourceful. She found the silver lining. Multiple silver linings, in fact. One was that they broke their previous record of longest time spent in his bedroom together. Another was that she managed to catch a glimpse inside his underwear drawer (he yelled at her, but it was worth it).

And now here she was at the third and final. The day's activities provided her with the perfect opportunity to swipe one of her boyfriend's T-shirts.

In a perfect world, Sheldon would have just given her one, but Amy learned at a young age this was not a perfect world. She knew he wouldn't understand why she wanted it, even if she explained it was social convention for pair-bonded individuals to share clothing like this. Their relationship wasn't there yet. She was doing the best she could to move at Sheldon's pace, but a girl could only take so much. Sometimes (okay, most times) she just had to make things happen for herself.

It felt like a long time ago that she was at this same bin with Penny and Bernadette, rifling through the clothing. Somehow it wasn't as fun and exciting going alone. Mostly she felt sort of sad and desperate. Was this really what her life had come to? Still, that wasn't enough to stop her.

Amy darted out and quickly located the bags she and Sheldon had dropped off earlier. He had no idea that she strategically packed and placed one of them so the shirts were on top. Thanks to her careful planning, it was easy to reach inside, grab what she needed, and jump back into her car. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, adrenaline coursing through her as she sped away from the scene.

She did it.

She stole one of her boyfriend's shirts. If anyone asked, she could say he let her borrow it to sleep in and she never gave it back. Like what would happen in a normal relationship.

As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she felt treacherous for thinking it. She . . . was very fond of Sheldon. He was brilliant, handsome, funny, and sweet in his own way. She had plenty of encounters with normal men through her previous annual dates and through the various other interactions that daily life demanded, and none of them made her feel like he did. She would choose Sheldon over any of them, even if it meant she had to resort to donation bin theft every now and then.

Once Amy was home, in her bedroom with the shirt smoothed out on her comforter, she hesitated. The original plan was to use it in place of her nightgown, but now she wasn't sure. The shirt she took was purple with some sort of white star logo on the chest, probably some comic book thing she didn't understand. She traced the design with her finger, then brought the shirt up to her face and inhaled. Fabric softener with very faint hints of talc, presumably from being stored in Sheldon's room and being handled by him earlier that day. She didn't want to lose that scent, which she would if she wore it herself and had to wash it.

So instead, she put the T-shirt on the 50-pound sack of rice she had stored in her kitchen. A pillow might have been cuddlier, but she wanted something with a little more heft to better mimic the weight of another person in her waterbed beside her.

A few minutes later, when Amy was laying under the covers next to Rice Sheldon, that sort of sad and desperate feeling came back. It was like when she made up a boyfriend in college or the whole Armin the miniature horse breeder incident. Even with a real boyfriend, she still had to craft a fake one.

Well, so what? Sheldon was real, and maybe on a long enough timeline he would be in bed with her one day. Until then, Amy could fake it until they made it.

The first thing Amy did when she got back from the Christmas party at 4A was throw out the infested rice sack and leave a message with her landlord requesting pest control services. This was something she should have done weeks ago, but she had been reluctant to let go of Rice Sheldon's companionship.

But no longer.

Leonard proved to her that Sheldon, the actual Sheldon, cared about her. He set her as his screensaver. That meant he spent at least some time looking at her picture and thinking about her when she wasn't there. And that meant maybe they were further along in this relationship than she thought.

Which was good, because she loved him. She could admit that to herself now.

Amy was about to throw Sheldon's old shirt in her hamper, but took a moment to regard it fondly. So much had changed since she stole it. She wasn't quite so sad and desperate anymore. It didn't even matter that Sheldon abruptly took off to Texas and crushed her hopes of spending the holidays with him. He would be back soon, and she couldn't wait to see him. Her days of faking it might be coming to an end. It was a Christmas miracle.

But she was still going to hang onto his T-shirt, just in case.

Author's Note:

Yeah, okay, another fic from me inspired by The Cooper Extraction. I really do love that episode, and I've wondered for a long time how Amy could have gotten her hands on one of Sheldon's shirts, but I didn't actually come up with an explanation until a few days ago. So here we are.

The T-shirt in question here is the Violet Lantern Corps shirt Sheldon wears a couple times in season 3. Huge thanks to the Sheldon's Shirts website for assisting me with that detail.

Also thank you to my beta reader Stark for all your input, to my Shamy friends on discord for all your support, and to all you lovely readers out there. And, if I don't manage to publish anything else in the next few weeks, happy holidays!