Disclaimer: All is Chuck's...
Part XXXIX...
"Yeah, hi, Miss...Doctowr Bwarry Kripke and my..."
"Dr. Fowler." Amy put out hand. "Very pleased to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, honey." the middle-aged receptionist for the UTexas Austin Physics Department eyed both, then Amy's cardigan, then shook the offered hand. "Are you here to see anyone?" As Barry put his quickly displayed Cal-Tech id away having covered the 2020 expiration date.
"Uh, yes, as a matter of fact...Dr. Michelson on the third floowr, who is giving the aftewrnoon seminawr at 1:30. Wanted to catch the ole fellow and offewr a few points, me being hewre to discuss a possible sabbaticwal I wanted to get to know a few of the fwolks about."
"J. Michelson, name's on the seminar poster..." Amy, cheerily.
"Jane? Yeah, she's on the third floor. Go up the stairs to the left. Room 315. Warm day for a sweater, isn't it, sweetie?"
"I'm from Maine. I feel undressed without it, unless it's a special social occassion. I have my Cal Tech id too, if..."
"Uh, no...Really not necessary." smile. "It's just the Physics Department here, lamby."
"Great. Great...Not that I have anything to hide. Of course one might want to consider that there may be..."
We're in....Shut up...Barry hissed, leading Amy over to the stairs.
"She didn't even really want to see your id...Don't they have security here? It's a University physics building."
"It's the 1990s, pwre 9/11...Besides the sensitive stuff is in the next bwuilding, where the main labs are. Though secuwrity is weak thewre too." As they hurried up the stairs...
The receptionist pondering. Girl reminds me of that strange little kid who drops by now and then for the seminars...
"Wait..." Amy halted on the stairs. "How did you know that?" she frowned at Kripke.
"Because, I wreally did consider a sabbatical hewre, under none other than Doctowr Stein. And while I didn't win the Stwevenson award at fouwrteen for theowretical physics, I did win the James Clewrk Maxwell pwrize for Plasma Physics a yeawr fwrom now for my papewr on applications of stable state plasma to expanding wormholes...I've been hewre." Kripke, calmly.
Amy eyed him. "That's how you knew Dr. Stein's work and how close Susan was to applying it..."
"I maintained my intewrest. And I wreally would have had something to talk about with Susan. Which natuwrally had led me to spend the last thwree nights boning up on the subject, so I could potentially bone hewr. Fate wowrks in mystewrious ways, Fowlewr."
"It does. But shouldn't we be in the other bwuil...Building? If that's where..."
"We've no wreason to expect Susan would be twrying again, she's accomplished hewr goal of getting hewre. It's just that she would want to have a good obsewrvation post to monitowr Sheldon without stalking his home. Though it is possible she might have hopes of going back to an Amyless futuwre later."
"But she can't alter our past. This timeline only exists so long as we live it. She has to stay."
"And watch her youngewr self do what she couldn't...Given hewr mental state, how long do you think she'll tolewrate even that?" he eyed her.
"You think she'd even take herself out...? But that's..."
"Not as cwrazy as destwroying a univewrse...Or at least a good pawrt of one. I don't think she'd kill her little self, but it could wlead hewr to twry a wreturn twrip to kill and wreplace Susan Stein Cwooper."
She stared at him... "That was hewr goal, aftewr all." Barry noted. "I'm just saying she don't stwrike as willing to let anothewr Susan wreap the benefits of hewr work. Any way, I doubt she'll act on that wright now. She's looking to keep a watch on youwr howrny lil' Sheldon. And a watch on you..."
"Young me, you mean?"
He nodded.
"Plus, thewre's ouwr X factowr....Xaviewr Fwrancis...The one who helped make this pwossible."
"Yes...So Sheldon thought. You think he's hewre, too?"
"He was in the lwab with Susan and the othewrs..." shrug. "He didn't do this out of the gwoodness of his heawrt, he expected something in wreturn."
"But what good does coming hewre...Here...Do him? And why would Susan trust him?"
They found themselves on the third and top floor...
"She wouldn't. And he wouldn't twrust hewr. But they needed to wowrk togethewr, till they didn't."
"It wouldn't do him any good, so far as I know to come here. He would have wanted to prevent Dr. Stein from..." Amy, pondering.
"No, if she had any idea, she couldn't trust him." she noted. "He's trying to prevent...Her."
"Quite the gwame of Rwussian rwoulette they wewre playing. He wins, she's gone...She wins, he sees her and hewr fathewr, pwresumably...As much as a fathewr-in-law of Cooper could be, happy and he's stuck alone twenty yeawrs too soon. Unless..."
"Unless?"
"Could be he was hoping to make his own twrip, fawrther back to set his own life stwraight, accowrding to his lights. A dual jump could have been managed. Or he might have planned to influwence events hewre and wruin Susan's plans or even..." shrug.
"What?"
"He might have done it just to tell his othewr self to let it go and be happy." Kripke eyed her. "Sometimes, that's the only thing you can do, aftewr all."
Amy pausing... "But...Susan? Is that really all? She'd take Sheldon and she'd be happy? And everything else remains the same...Penny and Leonard, Howard and Bernadette and their kids, Rajeesh and my family and yours and Sheldon's...Everyone? The only thing being that I lose Sheldon?"
"Who knows?" Kripke shrugged. "By changing that, the whole univewrse could change here and ours never develop as we know. Besides, you want Sheldon to hook up with this psycho?"
"But Sheldon and I, adult Sheldon and I, are here, we'd stay no matter what? We'd just be here, like everyone else..." she reached into her purse. "Nothing's gone from my photos like in 'Back to the Future', which Leonard got Sheldon to start watching again last..."
Oh...Poor Leonard...My poor bestie Penny!
"No way to tell..." Kripke shrugged. "I doubt if it works that way. You are simply a loop-over event between the multiverses. Probably nothing will happen to you, unless Dr. Stein, female, learns we're here."
He eyed her... "Are you saying you don't want to pwrceed?"
"I don't know...If all that would happen is young Sheldon and Susan...If Sheldon and I would be ok, but just stuck here? There are so many lives at stake..."
"Amy..."
"I know...We dragged you along. I promise if we decide not to do anything, we'll try to find a way, Barry."
"Thank you...But I was going to say, you'wre a most noble pewrson, Amy Farrah Fowler...-Cooper. The finest I know, excepting one." he frowned at her smile. "God no, not Cooper."
"Sheldon and I may have to talk, see what's best...And of course, be very sure..."Amy sighed.
"All the mowre wreason for now to keep youwr opwtions owpen." Barry noted. "For now, lets just check things out and see if Susan or Francis have shown, asking questions, and get an idea of the layout of the computer facility...Pwrimitive toys they may be. Wright now we just need an empty office."
"But..."
"This is a Physics depawrtment. Twrust me, thewre's an empty office. Though evewry untenuwred pwrofessor in the building is fighting to have it."
"So? What? We just knock on doors asking...?" Amy, pausing as Kripke politely knocked on the first office door with namecard before him.
"Yes?..." a call. "Door's unlocked."
"Hellow...Oh, wow...." Kripke paused, staring.
"Yes, young fellow?" the late sixties-seventyish woman in glasses, with unmistakable chin and nose, looked up at him. "Afraid I'm not Dr. Williamson, he's on vacation and lent me his office for the month. "
"Grandma!" Amy gasped.
...
"Again, I'm sorry, 'doctor' Hofstadter." young Amy sighed as Penny continued to grimly stare at her as they walked. "And I apologize for the threat, it really was just water..."
"And a sharp needle..." frown from Penny.
"I've had to take precautions. Sheldon's life has been in jeopardy. And your warning last night hyperalerted me."
"What? What do you mean? Has someone...?"
"Two members of the university football team offered to put his head in a urinal in their frat house when he told them neither would ever make it in professional sports and spelled out some very practical reasons, in easy to understand format...Considering their weight, balance, musculature, bone structure, brain capacity...
...In front of various gold-digging girlfriends."
"That's my Sheldon..." beam. "Uh, your...Sheldon."
"Bet your damn booties...'Bestie'." Amy, a bit mocking on the 'bestie'.
"But that's hardly reason, Amy...To..."
"Then there are the women, here, students, faculty, staff, unworthy of him...Who insist he is quote 'just the cutest thing'."
"Amy...He's twelve and I'm sure he is the cutest thing." Penny beamed. "You can't go around threatening to stab a needle into everyone who says that...You don't do you?"
"Only the ones I consider dangerous..."
"Like me..."
"We'll see." calm stare. "But I generally don't threaten such types...I just warn them off. Though Sheldon actually does most of that."
"I can imagine..." Penny nodded.
I really can...
"He has no time for such nonsense..." Amy insisted. A bit too forcefully, Penny realized.
Oh, no...Oh, Amy...
Well, he is twelve...The time many of them enter rat-bastardom.
Oh, but Sheldon...He'd never. Though, of course, he's got no idea Amy is here, guarding over him like some insane pitbull.
Oh...If I really can't go home, I could go find young Leonard! I could stalk...Protect him.
Maybe not with poisoned syringes but... Though I could see...All those sweet Texas college girls fallling all over our cute little Sheldon...And more seriously, some have younger sisters.
Yeah, I get it...Fond smile at Amy.
"Amy, honey...I know you love Sheldon but..."
"Then there are the North Koreans and the Chinese...And the Israelis." Amy noted grimly.
"Amy, that's racist..." Penny, shocked.
"I mean the spies..." Amy frowned.
...