"The X-Advisors..."
Summary: Like my Immortal Beloved bits in my Buffyverse stories, these are fragments and short bits, some longer...Just to fiddle with ideas, possibly forming longer tales later.
Disclaimer: All is Chuck's...
Part LXVII...
Cafeteria of the UAustin Physics Department...
"So you're saying...?" adult Amy in her "Miss Penelope Smith" garb, bending to eye young Sheldon as they stood in line...A few students eyeing them, a rather curious pairing.
"It's the third week of the month..." careful nod.
"American chop suey day!" both happily noted, eyeing the cafeteria counter, where. behind a plastic shield, lay the trays of glutenous pasta goodness, along with indifferent salad plates and equally indifferent lunch ladies and student work-study attendants. "Oh, the starchy, rehydrated tomato memories..." Amy beamed.
"Mr. Cooper!" a booming voice...Sheldon turning to see Dr. Fowler-Horowitz in her tweed suit, bearing down on them, politely staring off a few students in line, glasses firmly perched in...Uh-oh...Shields up! Position.
"Gr...Ow!" Amy groaned as Sheldon hastily kicked her shin.
"Forgive me, my future love, but you're not supposed to be Amy..." he hissed.
"Right...Ow..." she nursed kicked shin.
When did he lose such physical prowess...?
Oh, right...Arch inward beam.
Never...He just transferred it to...Other...Things...
"Dr. Fowler-Horowitz. Nice to see you." Sheldon, formally. "This is Miss Smith, a new student."
"Yes, right." Margaret nodded. Slight frown at Amy...Blonde? My dear girl...When has a Fowler ever needed such cheap ploys?
No offense to your friend, Miss Penny...But we know who really has more...Wicked...Fun...
Though your sister Charlotte is a warning to tread the line at downright Wicked carefully...
"Sheldon, I have to speak with you. There have been developments...Regards our 'project'."
Amy, anxious stare... "Francis? He's a fake?" she hissed.
"Not here..." Margaret, hasty low voice to her. "Sheldon can tell you in a moment." She raised voice, "If you would, Mr. Cooper?"
"Certainly, ma'am." He nodded. "Miss Smith, I'll rejoin you in a moment." He followed Dr. Fowler-Horowitz out of the line.
"Sheldon?! Should I get a hot dog to cut up?!" Amy called.
Sheldon beaming back to her quick fond smile...
You minx...
"Miss Penelope..." Ashley Smythe had seen his opportunity on entering the cafeteria as Sheldon stepped away, quickly sliding up to her. "How nice to find you here...Alone."
...
"Dr. Francis, the elder, has made contact...And Penny is to meet him?" young Sheldon pondered the somewhat concerning news as he and Margaret sat at an isolated table at the far end of the cafeteria.
"That appears to be the size of it." Margaret nodded.
"That's far too dangerous...For him physically, for her intellectually. He's got to be planning something to risk it on his side."
"Agreed. Though he may possibly be sincere in wanting an alliance against Susan." Margaret sighed. "But once he's again able to make use of her, he may have little use for us."
"Yes...He may want to do his own second wormhole...To reach his wife himself. Even if he could really be sure about her being saved he doesn't seem the type content to leave her even to the care of his own quantum counterpart or his past self." Sheldon grimaced, glancing over to where Ashley Breford Smythe was eagerly chatting up Amy who was glancing their way while attempting to seem reasonably interested, Margaret following his look.
Yes...Perhaps I understand the good/bad doctor better now I have won the brass ring in Romance. Twice...He beamed inwardly.
"More important matters, young Sheldon..." Margaret noted sternly, he sighing.
"Well, in terms of quantity not quality...I, of all people, must concede I put a premium on Romance." she smiled. "Besides, your girl is a Fowler." Firm nod.
"True enough..." frown as Smythe managed to coax a vague smile out of Amy.
"And she's simply playing a role, you know..."
"Too well." Sheldon, grimly.
"Sheldon?" grin, pushing glasses back. "I must say I'm pleased to see this streak in you, even if you're a bit young. It bodes well for your counterpart in terms of properly appreciating my Amy."
"She ought to be detaching from that Brit gigolo of a fraud and quack and getting over here..."
"Give her a moment. She may have to play the part for a bit yet and she needs the practice. Fortitude, Mr. Cooper."
"She says you used to threaten any woman who came near your husband. Even the postmistress in your town in Maine, the one who was eighty?" He eyed her.
"I never said I had fortitude, Sheldon." Wicked gleam shining through. "Here she comes though..."
"With that...#$# sidewinder!" Sheldon fumed. Uh...He eyed Margaret's stare.
"Very promising..." she beamed. "And it's also nice to know if your counterpart doesn't measure up, my girl has a spare. Now mind yourself, boy..." stern look, hiss.
"Young Cooper...And Dr. Fowler-Horowitz. You move in exalted circles, lad." Ashley, grandiloquently, nodding to Margaret who eyed him sternly.
"You know Miss Smith..." he indicated Amy, bearing a tray with three plates, including Sheldon's hot dog on one. Smythe holding his own as Sheldon eyed him narrowly, having tried to move napkin dispenser and salt and pepper shakers to block any attempt to establish a beachhead.
"I know she seems to be holding the heavier tray..." Margaret, coolly as Ashley seated himself, across from the only remaining empty seat, blandly pushing Sheldon's defensive fortifications aside.
"Oh, please, Miss Smith..." young Sheldon deftly maneuvered himself into said seat, offering the one he'd been in next to Margaret. "I know you wanted to discuss opportunities for study with Dr. Fowler-Horowitz. How are you, Smythe?" arch look across to a momentarily dark look from Smythe.
"Very well, young Cooper. Fascinating class today, eh? Wasn't it fascinating, Miss Smith?" Ashley turned to her diagonally.
"Fascinating..." she agreed.
"Dr. Stein does have a fine grasp of thermodynamics..." Sheldon nodded, turning to her directly.
And a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, you galdanged British #$% ! He thought, slight smile to Smythe.
"Indeed, it pairs up well with the work we've been doing at Cavendish..." Ashley began, eager to launch into a description.
"Miss Smith, with regards to your earlier questions to me, perhaps we should take our lunches up to my office...If you don't mind, given my schedule is tight today?" Margaret suggested, turning to Amy, who blinked a bit at her. "I believe there may be a project I'm considering that you might fit well on." Shrewd look.
"Of course...Thank you, Doctor." Amy, catching hint and rising with her, both taking their trays.
"We'll see you gentlemen later at my seminar, eh?" Margaret, pleasantly.
Ashley, another narrow look...
"So, Smythe, you were saying about your work at Cavendish...?" young Sheldon, trace of smugness as Amy and Margaret headed off.
Oh, she cut the dogs up just right...He eyed his plate.
That woman is perfection personified.
...
"So, Dr. Francis contacted Penny?" Amy, seated before Margaret's desk in her borrowed visiting professor's office, tensely. "How did he know she was in the hospital? And does he know Susan is?"
"He could have been checking with the police about her, he knows them well...They'd have no reason not to tell him she'd been hospitalized at UAustin. Though he may well have been searching for Susan there." Margaret shrugging.
"Sheldon's sure he hasn't found her?"
"As sure as he could be...But it's impossible to say and they wisely don't wish to risk contact with her right now."
"Penny can't meet with him in her condition..." Amy shook head. "It should be me..."
"Absolutely not." Margaret sternly. "Girl, you know next to Susan you're his number one potential bargaining chip. The thing that would surely bring Susan to him, assuming she's faking or recovers her memory. You can't risk it."
"You think he's planning another wormhole as well...?" Amy eyed her.
"He can't know if Margaret...His Margaret...Really was saved by his quantum counterpart. And he's shown he's as unstable as Susan." Sigh. "I can't believe it, still...Seeing our Xavier today...Mourning her of course but still a balanced and good man. What could have happened to him to change him so? To make him so callous...? Amy?" distressed look. "Was I ever...? When your dear grandfather died?"
"You were very ill, but no...You wouldn't've destroyed the world to get him back." Amy, firmly.
I think. Come to think of it she was pretty out of it the first months...But no...No more than I...
Though, if I had the means...And knew it would only affect possible timelines in an infinite universe...
"Somehow Xavier's come to an insane rationalization..." Margaret noted, nodding. "Susan may simply be insane and obsessed but his insanity is in its way even more dangerous. Because he's convinced himself, somehow, it has no consequences."
"It's exactly what we feared from Susan. Destroy universe after universe, to get the result you want...Claiming to yourself it doesn't matter because the multiverse is infinite. A chain reaction of destruction..." Amy shook head.
No...Never think that...Amy thought.
Sheldon only talked about such things...He never seriously intended to destroy Humanity and replace it with androids.
"He's lost himself...Poor Xavier...I know it's hard for you to understand but he and Francis Stein are very dear to me." Margaret, wiping eyes a moment. "I feel I must have failed him somehow, in your universe."
Of course...If he ever really did consider it...Amy thought, suddenly beaming... I saved him.
"Amy?"
Me. My love for him. Oh...My...
"Amy." Stern tone.
"Oh, sorry Gran. Just speculating on something."
"Yes..." stern frown. "But you can be proud of saving Sheldon Cooper from becoming a monster later..."
"Gran...?" Amy blinked.
"I'd seen the signs..." shrug. "And you look like I did when I knew I'd saved my Leonard from a terrible marital choice by snatching him off that weekend. You should be proud but for now, we must focus."
"Sheldon would never..."
"Probably not in the way Xavier did. But he was clearly headed for a rather miserable existence, not unlike Francis Stein in his younger days. To be fair that's not all brilliant perception, Francis often has discussed young Mr. Cooper with me." Smile. "He saw himself in that boy and worried for him."
"He's a good man, Dr. Stein."
"A very good man..." sigh. "But so was his best friend. But..." shaking herself. "This is no time to regret and ruminate. We need to consider the matters at hand. This meeting with Xavier is crucial and a decision will have to be made."
"Gran? I still don't like the idea of Penny meeting him."
"She may not have to, Amy." Hard stare. "So long as we know where he is and when..."
"Gran...?" blinking.
"I haven't simply been mourning my friend's tragic decline in morality, Amy. He's literally willing to kill billions. One man's life may be a small price to pay to prevent that." Dry-eyed, hard, stare.
....
Penny's hospital room...
"I don't like it. It's dangerous." Sheldon shook head.
"We'd planned it before..." Penny noted.
"You planned it before...I never really inputted nor agreed." He frowned. "Amy?"
Fond beam from younger Amy...
He consults me on critical issues...Oh...
Oh? Why does Penny always hint he may not fully include me in his decision-making process?
"I know Gran agreed in part but it wasn't so dangerous before, Penny. If Dr. Francis is watching you...And doesn't yet know Susan is here...If you go to her..."
"One way or the other we have to keep track of her. He'll catch on regardless, no matter which of us watches her." Penny noted. Narrow look at both...
"Guys, I can handle this...I'll be a most loving 'sis'. I'm a former actress turned budding experimental physicist. I'll have her eating out of my hand..."
After the lobotomy...She darkly thought.
"How do you explain winding up here?" Sheldon noted, stern look.
"Why when I learned my poor dear sis had fled her bad marriage and disappeared, I just had myself a little ole heart attack." Penny in rather stagey Southern belle accent.
"Forget the phony accent." He frowned. "You're from the Nebraska side of the family."
"Hey...? Amy?" glance for support.
"I'd forget it, cousin." Amy sighed. "Sheldon? You're going along with this?"
"Penny has a point. Either we keep in contact with her at the risk of letting Francis know of her or he does, sooner or later, without our knowing. Your Gran agreed, to some extent..." he shrugged. "We might even be able to use this to our advantage if he is keeping watch on us here. You and Penny can visit with 'sis' and 'cousin' Sue and keep her cocooned in our ersatz family web while I apply my detection skills to finding him."
What? He eyed the two...