Disclaimer: All is Chuck's...
[Note-delayed for a while on this one due to life and other stories but will try to continue on...RG]
Part XXXIII...
"Are you enjoying your beverage...Amy?" young Sheldon beamed at Amy who smiled back.
Hmmn...Sheldon eyed his counterpart.
I could take him but the memory of painfully being informed that my fiancée is not for you, younger self would be somewhat distressing...
And Amy would probably prefer I not go physical on my younger self...
"My money's on him..." Kripke, hissed, having rather easily guessed all that Sheldon's glare indicated he was thinking.
Hmmn...Perhaps. I was in rather good shape at the time thanks to constantly having run home to my dorm from class, pursued by offended, rather troglodyte classmates, the previous two years ago at East Texas Tech.
And would rather disturb the macho image Amy has of me to be beaten up by my younger self...
Young Sheldon eyeing his counterpart with an arch look...
"It seems to me..." he eyed adult Sheldon, who realized he had not as yet been offered a beverage.
Clearly our girl prefers...Me...Loser. Older Loser.
"...that you were quite foolish to make this experiment without proper safeguards. What were you thinking to come here without any way of getting yourselves back?" frown.
"We're not entirely without equipment. My...Partner...Kripke here helped me cobble together a field matrix controller last...Well...Many nights in the future."
"I still can't believe you realized what Susan was up to..." Amy beamed.
"Yes, I did..."
Score one, adult Sheldon, lil' loser. He eyed his annoyed counterpart.
"...But never thought how you'd return?" young Sheldon countered.
"I wasn't sure Susan would really try something so insane..." Sheldon shrugged. "I knew she seemed too interested in Leonard's microwormhole experiment. And I knew she and Dr. Francis were well acquainted with Dr. Stein's old wormhole traverse papers from this era."
"Yes, I just read his latest..." young Sheldon nodded.
"And if Amy hadn't..." slight pause.
Amy, glaring...
Uh-oh. Adult Sheldon. Oh, good...Young Sheldon beaming.
"You were going to go alone!" she raged, rising.
Oooh...Feisty Fowler...Kripke beamed from his chair.
Say, where's my drink...?
"You were going to go and leave me there!" Amy, furious.
"I was going to make sure you were..." he tried.
"Safe! I'd've been dead with the others! But that's not the important thing!" she fumed.
Rather would be to me...Kripke thought.
"You might be stuck here, alone, forever!" she shook head. "Away from me!"
"I was trying to save you..." he sighed. "I didn't want to take the chance you'd be stuck here with me."
"What if you fail? To restore the timeline and our universe?!" Amy insisted. "I'd be dead and gone from you."
Well, you coulda had my younger self...Easy. That's certainly true.
For a microsecond an image of a debonair 50ish Sheldon escorting her in her present formed...
"Wait a mo..." she reddened. "I get it now. I see why you didn't want me along."
"I didn't want you here because I might never be able to send us home." She glared...Uh-huh... "And?"
"And that was only Plan B...If I failed to stop Susan by other means."
"What was Plan C, seduce young Susan instead?" she eyed him.
Well...
Cooper...Kripke, admiringly.
Seems we may have more in common than I ever thought.
"You were going to offer yourself to one of them!" she cried. "Sheldon? How could you?"
Indeed...And thanks, idiot counterpart, young Sheldon thought, beaming.
"I was going to stop her. But I had no way to know what means I would have to employ and..." he paused, sighing. "Whatever she is, Susan is ill, I wasn't sure if I could..."
"Strangle, stab, run over, eviscerate, club to death, shoot, burn...I'm up for all of them, lucky for you I was there in the office when you had to go and tap her matrix." Amy noted.
"I thought it might be the easiest solution if all else failed. I could keep her restrained."
"You..." Amy, teary-eyed. "You wanted to be with her!"
"I wanted to be with you, Amy. And to save Leonard and all my friends...And if that was the only way...For one of me to keep Susan under control...But..." he paused, grim-faced. "After she killed everyone in our world, at least all those we loved, for herself...She and Dr. Francis. I could kill them both, not a problem."
Dang...Young Sheldon sighed. I've lost her for sure.
But, there is young Amy, apparently around here somewhere...And this proves I will land her.
Contented beam...
"Of couwrse, fellas...If a sacwrifice must be made. And to avoid the mowral consequences of bloody muwrdewr. Thewre is a studly male wready and available to take on the chwallenge." Kripke noted.
"Sheldon?" Amy, suddenly.
Hmmn...Both looked.
"You forgot Sheldon's beverage." She noted, sly grin to Adult Sheldon.
Sheldon, adult for the win...Loser kid. He eyed the somewhat annoyed young Sheldon.
Well, still...We both win. Young Sheldon eyed Adult, both nodding to each other.
....
The University hotel just outside the Austin campus...
"No, no...No need to let Dr. Stein know I'm here. I wanted to surprise him. Just the usual room, thanks." Xavier smiled to the clerk. Hobbling a bit...Broken hand dangling.
"I'm a bit worn out...Been doing one of those intensive challenge things..." he noted. The clerk nodding.
"Grandpa's...." Father...Francis mouthed...I'm supposed to be in my fifties now.
Dad's... Really pooped so if you could..." Penny urged.
"Sure...Here you go, Dr. Francis." The clerk handed a key.
"Keys, how cute." Penny smiled
"My daughter's in from Los Angeles...They use card keys everywhere now." Xavier smiled.
"Of course, doc. Hope you and your 'daughter' have a nice time with us." Lewd smile.
"Was he suggesting...?" an annoyed Penny, glaring back at the clerk as they made for an elevator.
"Stein and I brought a lot of 'daughters' and 'nieces' here, then." Francis noted. "It didn't become 'granddaughters' till the 2000s."
She eyed him...Pondering.
And not only whether to kill him as soon as they got to the room...
...
"So all this involves Susan Stein, my advisor's daughter?" young Sheldon eyed his guests.
"You see where my taste for tangerine chicken came from." Sheldon noted to Amy as they ate. "Mr. Pai's always had the best. Dr. Brown introduced me to it when I first came. And yes, younger self, it's nearly all about Miss Stein. And Dr. Stein's best friend and bitter enemy, Dr. Francis."
"But they're very good friends..." young Sheldon noted. "What caused this rupture? And you're saying this daughter of Stein became a world-class theoretical physicist?"
"And powrn star." Kripke noted. Amy frowning...
"It's my hope we can find a way to keep hewr on that most excellent cawreer path. Saving our wowrld and doing a sewrvice to Awrt."
"Barry." Amy, sternly. "It had something to do with Dr. Francis' girl, Margaret. She was dying and Dr. Stein tried to help her...Ummn."
"Make babies." Adult Sheldon noted.
"Oh..." Young Sheldon nodded. "Tampering with genetic destiny, that might cause grievous offense. But why didn't Dr. Francis...Perform the task? Was there an illicit affair involved? And by the way, Dr. Fowler, has this rather lewd partner of my counterpart ever...? So much as...?"
"Your counterpart would never allow it. And I've no interest." Amy, proudly.
"Well done, older self." Young Sheldon nodded.
Kripke frowning...
It's only that my heawrt belongs to another that I didn't display my seducewr's gift...
Howevewr, if Lesley is lost to me by her natuwre, I could dedicate my life to rwescuing the Physicist of Powrn fwrom her likely twragic fate...
"But as to Dr. Francis...Apparently his wife was dangerously ill and he hoped to save her and wouldn't take any risk." Amy noted. "Dr. Stein was simply trying to give her and his friend a chance to keep a part of her, at her request, and as I understand, quite...Uh..."
"Hygienically?" Young Sheldon nodded. "In most cases, I would heartily agree. Though..." narrow glance to adult Sheldon. "Has he?"
"Some things are never discussed among gentlemen, sir." Sheldon frowned.
"Oh...Of course." nod
Nice...Grin.
"But this seems poor reason to destroy the world, your world..." he noted.
"I'm sure he believed, Dr. Francis, that he'd restore that world, but to his satisfaction..." Sheldon shrugged. "Susan? She may not have cared either way, though I think she hoped..."
"He must have gone to a different time, if he went." Amy pondered. "When he could prevent...Susan?"
"Wait..." young Sheldon blinked. "They were in partnership, yet he planned to destroy her?"
"Yes...And she knew that." Sheldon nodded. "She always planned to cross him, probably left him back there. Otherwise we'd been back about the time Susan was conceived."
"Yes...But it remains strange." Amy eyed him and the others. "You say he and Dr. Stein are wonderful friends still. Dr. Stein suggested the same in my talks with him. The break came later, not when Susan was born."
"She was carried by Stein's own wife..." Sheldon noted. "He might not have found out till more recently that she was Margaret's daughter."
"Perhaps..." Amy reflected. "That would suggest it was Susan who told him the truth. To deliberately cause the break and get his help with making her father's theories reality."
"Was it the twruth?" Kripke, archly.
"What?" Sheldon stared.
"Susan Stein is bat-shit cwrazy, I think we can agwree. Her mom was likewise, only more so. And have any of you seen Mom's photos but me?" he smiled.
"Wish I could show you but my I-phone had them stored in a cloud not yet inwented. Bottom line is, if she's not Susan's mother, I am bwlind."
"Then Dr. Francis has been following a lie..." Amy blinked. "He destroyed our world or helped to, all for a lie?"
"When a man loves a woman..." Young Sheldon shook head, eyeing Amy with faint smile. Adult Sheldon, likewise.
...