Rated: K - English - Humor/General - Reviews: 19 - Published: 12-09-12 - Updated: 01-02-13 id:8781588
"It's a Reasonably Bearable Existence..."
Summary: The Powers That Be have had it with Sheldon...And have decided he needs a little Xmas...
Disclaimer: It's all Chuck's...But nothing for Joss Whedon on this one.
(Just a note...To learn more about Amy's rather bipolar, beautiful, and somewhat tragic sister and her Sheldon Cooper obsession, you'll want to read "Gran Mag")
Part XIII...
[I go with Patty Duke as Meemaw, myself...But feel free...]
By the Air France departures gates at Bob Hope International Airport, Burbank, CA...
("Meemaw?!...Where's..." Sheldon stared...
"The girl had to get her family's Christmas Eve dinner on her table...Sorry if we startled you but the world can't stop for you all the time, Shelly..." shake of head, brush of white hair...Sigh...
"Is that Amy?...Your mama showed me her picture once..." she looked over at the sad-faced figure standing by the departure gate for Air France's next flight to Paris...
"Meemaw..."
"Sheldon Lee Cooper, I'm disappointed in you...And your Paw-paw may go easy on you, considering how long it's been since he's had a chance to see his young Edison, I'm not about to let you off so easily..." she pushed a pair of large spectacles in metal frame back on her nose...Folding arms...
"Well?...What have you got to say for yourself?..."
"Meemaw...We have to stop Amy from boarding that plane!...Can't you get me to her?!...I'll fix things!..."
"Didn't the young lady explain, Shelly?...We're the shadows here...I'm afraid not, honey..." sigh..."Poor thing...She worked hard on that costume and song, Sheldon..." stern eyeing... "And I am here to tell you, it's not easy to that sort of thing when you're in your first stages of morning sickness..."
"Please, Meemaw...You have to help me...Amy can't go to France...I can't let her go now..."
"And why is she going...With my great-grandchild...?"
"I was bad...I hurt her...I didn't mean to...Meemaw, she's the girl I should stay on the roller coaster with..."
Smile... "So you remember my advise, now..." frown... "But a little slow on it in the practical application...Oh, honey..." shake of head... "Why did you let that girl go?...Didn't anything I ever tole you ever sink in?..."
"I tried to be nice to her...Meemaw...I wanted to be...But everyone wants so much...I don't know how..."
Hard stare... "Sheldon...I've known you since you were born and if you are going to tell me that you being smart and not wanting to be like your daddy means you can't show a fine girl and the people who love you how much you love them...Well, you can throw any fancy medical or other term at me but I won't accept it...You were a loving boy, Shelly...When did you get so afraid of people, even the people who love you?..."
"Everyone goes away, Meemaw...Amy's going...You and Pawpaw and Daddy went...No one stays...I know when they go they're gone..."
"Even seeing me here right now?..."
"I could be dreaming...I probably am..." Ummn... "But, please don't do what Pawpaw did to convince me...I accept that you're here..."
"That's good..." Penelope cut in...Suddenly visible a few feet away... "Say, thanks so much for taking over on short notice..." she addressed Meemaw... "I didn't want to let my turkey burn..."
"Not a problem, sweetie-pie..." Meemaw nodded... "Did you have a nice Christmas Eve?..."
"Oh, very nice...It's our family time...We have the guests on Christmas day..."
"Excuse me..." Sheldon...
"We're talking, Shelly..." Meemaw eyed him... "And this nice lady has put off her time with her family to help you so it behooves you to show her what...?"
"A little consideration..." he sighed...
"Thank you, lad...He's not a bad boy in most things, ma'am..." Penelope noted... "However..." frown...
"Indeed..." Meemaw joining in frown...
"I've said I was sorry..." Sheldon shrugged, waving hands... "If you'd help me, I'd stop Amy now...Meemaw..."
"The damage was done before we got here, Shelly..."
"I didn't mean to, ma'am..." he noted, nervously... "I was very lonely...When you died, ma'am..."
"If you mean, get her in the family way, Shelly...I don't mind that...That's your mama's concern if it bothers her...So long as you do your duty and treat the girl right...And you love her truly, I'm fine with it...Sides, I understand the poor thing was never so happy and that's never a bad thing...Till you went and broke her lil' heart..."
"I didn't know, Meemaw...I guessed, as Miss Penelope said...But..."
"Shelly...I don't know what's gone wrong in that wonderful brain of yours along the way but something is discombobulated in there and you have got to use that brain and figure out what...Now, do you love that poor child?..."
"Well...She's my girlfriend...I drew up and signed a Relationship Agreement..."
"And he judochopped his best friend when he got jealous of him and her..." Penelope noted, with smile...
"That's good but not what I asked...Shelly?...Do you love Amy?..."
"I've never met anyone like her...She understands me, sort of...Yes, Meemaw..." he nodded...A blink of wonder... "I think I do..."
"Think?..." Penelope frowned...
"Mrs. Oddbody..." Meemaw put up a hand... "Well, Shelly...As Mrs. Oddbody just hinted...That's not quite it...But it's a start...Come on..." she put out her hand to him... "Lets go..."
"But Amy..." glance to the forlorn figure now in boarding line...She looking round as if almost expecting...Hoping...
"Meemaw, I think she knows I'm here...I have to speak to her..."
"Shelly...We're moving through time back and forth...Amy will be fine for now...What matters is what we can do with you, honey...Now mind and lets go see where my Moonpie lost his courage...")
"Hello?..." Amy grabbing at her buzzing cell phone... "Oh...Hello, bestie..." downcast look...
("Meemaw?..." Sheldon stared...
"Do you trust your Meemaw or no, Shelly?..." hard stare... "Well, she promises that everything can be made right if you're up to the job...So lets to it, ok?..."
"Yes, ma'am..."
"So do you roast your bird on a spit, Mrs. Oddbody?..." Meemaw asked... "I've not had spit turkey since I was a very little girl...Always lovely to remember, the bird always came out so nice and juicy..."
"Oh, yes...My boys are used to it and we like a good fire roasting..." Penelope noted happily...Sheldon sighing...
But, if Meemaw says it will be alright...)
University of Texas at Austin...
Offices of the Physics Department...
("You remember this place?..." Meemaw asked as Sheldon looked round...
"Remember it?...I could probably find my way around it...I was a grad student here..." he beamed...
"That means he liked it here..." she smiled at a beaming Penelope...
"Ahhh...Dr. Brown's office..." he stared...At the office of Dr. Emmet Brown, Ph.D. Sc.D...
"And there's my Moonpie..." Meemaw, fondly...)
Bang at office door...
Not a knock by the young Sheldon, aged just over 11, staring at the door...A bang from inside...
"Dr. Brown?..." young Sheldon called...
"Sheldon!..." the door burst open... "Come in, come in!..." quick yank...
"Sandy out?...Good..." Dr. Brown, finishing his query as to his secretary's whereabouts before young Sheldon could answer...
"What was the banging, Dr. Brown?..."
"Oh, that?...Oh, nothing..." Brown shrugged, jerkily... "I was trying to measure the impact velocity of my son's water cannon...So, Sheldon?..." he pulled a chair over, indicating for Sheldon, now glancing round the office, a model of disarray, to sit... "What's up?...Everything going well?...You settling in ok?..."
"I think so, sir..." Sheldon nodded... "Workwise...Though I need more time on the University computer...Couldn't some of the undergraduates do their classes somewhere else?...Like on paper...It's not like they really get any sensible use out of the system..."
"Agreed, Cooper, agreed..." Brown nodded fervently... "But they do pay tuition so we have to let them have class lab time...But I'll see what I can do...Now, we were going to discuss your thesis topic, weren't we?...Oh, wait..." he pulled up sharply... "I was asking about how you were doing and you only mentioned the work..." sudden careful eyeing... "Well?..."
Shrug... "I don't care about the other stuff...I'm here to do my science..."
"I see..." narrowly shrewd look... "Sheldon...You are the youngest student here right now, excepting the Chancellor's idiot nephew in History...And it's bound to be a difficult adjustment...That only stands to reason, bound out by the latest sociological research, correct?..."
"If one can call it 'research'..." Sheldon, smugly...
"Such work has its place, Cooper..." Brown shook his head... "But you do accept the more valid studies?..."
"There is some reasonably well done work...Margaret Fowler-Horowitz did an interesting paper I read...She's the one that girl told me to look up...I told you about her?..."
"Oh...Yes..." Brown nodded... "The mystery girl on the train with the Proteus Syndrome/Elephant Man sister...I remember..." shrewd look... "Pretty, eh?..."
"If one takes stock of that sort of thing, I guess so..."
"You guess so, eh?...Did you get her number?..."
"No...I only met her twice, at the station and on the train..."
"Cooper...Twice?...Well, you're young yet...But never let a chance variable like that escape you...The Universe does not allow third chances without some expenditure of energy...Now as to the situation here...Have you made any friends...?"
"I have a roommate...He's extremely stupid and always bringing girls in...I've asked the administration for a single room..."
"I take it you two don't get on..."
"I've tried..." shrug... "The guy just stares at me when I try to engage in witty repartee or serious discussion...Dumbed down, of course...It's the same as back home..."
"Hmmn...Cooper, did you ever consider letting him speak?..."
"Him?...Speak?...Why?...He's got nothing to say..."
Brown, hand to forehead... "Sheldon, I'm a divorced father of two...And both my sons are, quite frankly...Not going to win Nobels anytime in this existence... But I've found that they actually enjoy talking on subjects they know something about...And if I try to listen, I even find I enjoy talking to them...I even learn something...In fact in their own way, they stimulate my intellect...Take this water cannon for instance..." he went over to his desk...Patting a large water cannon toy on it...
"My oldest boy is getting this for Christmas...And I found common ground with him discussing it...Me wanting to figure out a theory of possible random vectors to which its exspelled output could be directed...He wanting to know which way to fire off the hardest spray to hit his brother with...Which, considering I can apply that to his mother, is yet another source of common ground..."
"I don't see the point, Dr. Brown..."
"Sheldon...What I'm saying is...Even with people who are not functioning at our level in Physics or Mathematics we can hope to find some level of common ground...For example, you enjoy 'Star Trek' don't you?..."
"When I was a kid..." Sheldon, carefully...
Hard stare...
"I like it..."
"As do I...And yet, if we were to analyze the science in the program..."
"I couldn't do that...I could never watch it again..."
"Yes...And to counter that we do what?..."
"Pretend it makes sense and ignore the stuff that's ridiculous..."
"Exactly...And that's what you need to do with your roommate...And most of the student body...And a good percentage of the faculty..."
"But I'd be lying to fit in...I don't want to do that...Why can't they just accept that I'm smarter and more intellectually capable...?"
"When you met the femme fatale on that train...And her sister...Did you tell her you were smarter and more intellectually capable?..."
"I'd just met her...And Meemaw was with me..."
"So you found valid excuses to avoid the situation..."
"Besides...She seemed quite intellectually capable..."
"And yet you didn't get her number...Or her address, I presume?..."
"Meemaw was there...And I'm only 11..."
"Yet shrewd enough to avoid putting the young lady off..." smile... "Sheldon, you're a charming boy and you know what you have to do to make people like you...Just try and do it...Occasionally, when it doesn't interfere with your work...Anyway..." Beam... "It's Christmas Eve, Doctoral candidate Cooper...And I believe you have a date for our party here and dinner at my home...No excuses taken and no more shop to talk..."
"Dr. Brown?..." a pretty brunette head leaned in from partly opened door...
"Ms. Sandrewski...."bow... "I was just telling our young prodigy here that it is Christmas Eve and time...If I can get away with mentioning time without another 'Emmett Brown and time travel' joke...We were closing up here and getting our party started..."
"Indeed it is, Dr. B..." Ms. Sandrewski... Sandra by first name...Beaming...Entered the room...A lovely, lithe young woman...Sheldon staring at her...
"Come on, future boy..." she grinned at him... "Help me set up for the party...And you too, there, 'Doc Brown'..."
"Ay, time's awastin...Come on 'Marty'..." Brown grinned taking Sheldon's hand... "No more of this worrying about the structure of time and space...We are in the Christmas dimension for the duration..."
("Your advisor, Dr. Brown..." Meemaw smiled... "A very sweet man...And he was fond of you..."
"I'll not deny it, ma'am...He was very kind to me..."
"Nice girl..." Penelope noted...
"I think she was his girlfriend..." Sheldon sighed... "And that got him in trouble...His wife had named her in the divorce and the university let them both go..."
"It must have been very hard to lose a friend like that while trying to fit in here..." Penelope eyed him...
"It's what people do to you when you try to love them..."
"But I doubt Dr. Brown would've said that...I think he loved that girl very much from what you used to write me in your letters and when I saw him with you that time I came up to campus..." Meemaw smiled...
"She didn't stay with him...He had a heart attack and died that year..." Sheldon noted...
"I doubt you knew the details, Shelly...Maybe she couldn't stay...And he might have had the attack even if all that happened hadn't happened..."
"He taught me all about the structure of time...He was my friend...We used to say we'd travel in time one day if we could ever get enough power...We were like the characters in 'Back To The Future...' he called me Marty..." gripping hands...
"You never did watch that film after he died, did you, Shelly?..." Meemaw, kindly...
"No...")