Collide, or, The Cooper-Ballard Convergence

Cht 3

I’m open, you’re closed

Where I follow, you’ll go

Sheldon Cooper had never before been able to gloat in victory over a paintball match, but today had just been his lucky day. Only he didn’t believe in luck. What he did believe in was a secret weapon, and Whitney Ballard had proven herself in the heat of battle. She taught them things that in years of playing World of Warcraft and other strategy games they had never considered or seen. He was now willing to openly admit that he needed her. She would make a great hunter for their post-apocalyptic landing party.

In the beginning he had grudgingly conceded her points when she assumed control of strategizing over the playing field, but his measure of her shifted considerably when they successfully downed the entire geology team—and let’s face it, they had had it coming since they slaughtered him last year when he had nobly sacrificed himself for the good of the team. Even sweeter was the fact that she had set up both Kripke and Leslie Winkle to be the leaders of what she called a wedge formation that ultimately ended in the two physicists becoming collateral damage.

By the time the match finished and the tired and sore victors returned to the apartment building, Sheldon was in such a generous mood that he even invited their newly established paintball team general to eat Thai dinner at their place later that night.

Whitney, in equally good spirits, accepted. She was relieved to know that the guys’ girlfriends would be there. Penny, Leonard’s girlfriend who showed up for paintball also, had proven to be not only an asset to the team, but a welcome dose of ‘normal’ in an otherwise ragtag group of Poindexters. Whitney could not fathom how she and Leonard had gotten together. More amazing was the fact that Howard, a closet perv who also worked with the guys at Caltech, was married. Whitney could not wait to meet the woman who had decided that guy was a prize. Truth be known, she was more than idly curious to meet Sheldon’s girlfriend and tried to ignore the little drop in her gut at learning he had one in the first place.

She just wanted to feed Raj alcohol to find out if he could actually talk. The most she had gotten out of him that morning was a squeak when she addressed him openly. But first things first, she had to meet the movers at two and hopefully have the apartment cleaned before they started hauling in furniture. Then dinner and what proved to be a sideshow of scientists.

When she traipsed downstairs that night after a quick shower to wash off the grime of cleaning and unpacking, Whitney knocked on 4A’s door and waited only a moment before it swung open to reveal a smiling Penny.

“Hey Whitney, come on in!”

“Hey there,” Whitney replied, gesturing with the bottle of wine she had brought. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Oooh awesome! I’ll just let this chill for a minute. Come on in and meet everybody.”

The guys greeted her cheerily as she walked in, and a blond chirpy woman with glasses introduced herself as Bernadette.  Whitney glanced over to the couch where Sheldon sat next to a surly looking girl in head to toe tweed. She wrapped her arms possessively around one of Sheldon’s, causing him to stiffen up uncomfortably. Looks like someone’s a tad insecure…

“You must be Sheldon’s girlfriend,” Whitney said, accepting a beer from Leonard. “Amy, right?”

“That’s right, he’s mine so mitts off!” Amy replied brusquely.

A corner of Whitney’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah no problem. I’ll try to tamp down the urge to straddle him right here and now.”

“You just do that,” Amy replied tersely. “I may not look like much to you, but I could cut your head open like a melon just to see what I’d find.”

“Ah, Amy, sweetie,” Penny interjected, handing the girl a much needed beer. “I think Sheldon’s quite safe from Whitney.”

Whitney shook her head and glanced at Bernadette, who smiled ruefully. No one seemed to think Amy’s behavior was out of the ordinary at all, which was sadly telling. The real question is, Whitney wondered, who would save Sheldon from Amy?

The rest of the evening proved much less awkward. She had to deflect a few passes from Raj once he started drinking, but Bernadette thankfully tamped down on Howard’s perviness and Penny proved to be a great foil to Leonard’s waffling science speak. She had a gift for letting him know when he started rambling off on tangents.

They wound up watching a copy of The Labyrinth, which was punctuated by Sheldon expounding on the merits of Jim Henson’s puppetry and an argument as to whether or not Jareth was truly dead since the owl was watching Sara and her friends at the window in the ending scene.

Not long after the movie was done, Howard and Bernadette begged off since they clearly wanted to make an early night of it and had to drop a drunken Raj off first. So Whitney wound up walking out with Penny and Leonard as they headed across to Penny’s apartment. Whitney said good-night to them at the stairs and slowly climbed to her own apartment where she promptly passed out as soon as she could climb into bed.

Downstairs though, Sheldon and Amy got into as heated an argument as the two could in nearly monotone voices.

“Sheldon,” Amy droned. “I do not like how she looks at you. She looks as if she actually finds you amusing, and I am the only one allowed to do so.”

“Amy,” Sheldon huffed. “That is absolutely preposterous!”

“Loads of people find me humorous,” he added a beat later. “I do have quite the sense of humor.”

“But that’s not all. She looks at you when she thinks no one is looking at her—a clear sign of romantic interest. Why, if she were a gibbon, she would be bending over and displaying her hindquarters in invitation!”

Sheldon got a fleeting image of Whitney bending over and showing her rump. Granted, it would make the traditional heart shape with its well-roundedness…

“Sheldon!” Amy cut into his thoughts with the same precision she showed with her brain samples.

Sheldon snapped to and almost blushed at the train of thought his mind had taken him on at the mere suggestion of the girl upstairs. Oh dear lord, I’m getting as hormonal as Wolowitz, he thought, what’s next? Tacky belt buckles and skinny jeans?

“You’re attracted to her aren’t you,” Amy gasped. “That—that—little pixie is the Tinkerbell to my Wendy! Well…there’s no such thing as fairies, Peter Pan!”

“Amy!” Sheldon began, not knowing quite where to go with his argument once he had her attention. “You know I have no interest in coitus.”

“Maybe not with me; maybe that’s why it’s been three years with nothing but handholding and chaste kisses and barely a cuddle! But you could easily see it with that—that wanton GI Jane with her tiny little body and her wicked fairy tattoo.”

“I admit that Penny is aesthetically pleasing to look at and concede that she is attractive to members of the opposite sex, and you do not find that troubling,” he hedged.

“That’s because she is my beautiful best friend and she’s already taken. Besides, if you wanted to have a nice tasteful ménage a trois with her I would on that in a heartbeat!”

“Amy!” Sheldon tsked, clearly discomfited with the direction their conversation had taken. “I couldn’t possibly! She’s like my long-lost hayseed sister—like a blond Missy, if you will.”

“Besides, coitus is messy enough with just two people. It would be a veritable plague fest with three.”

“That’s what condoms and mouthwash are for Sheldon! You make sure you brush, floss and rinse, then wrap it before you tap it!”

Sheldon blushed all the way up to his ears. “Amy, I am extremely uncomfortable with the direction this discussion is going.”

“And I am tired of it not going anywhere,” Amy sighed in resignation. “Maybe I should have stayed with Stuart.”

Sheldon started, visibly stung at the finality of her words. “Amy!”

“You know what? Good night Sheldon. And goodbye,” Amy said, rising from the couch and gathering her keys from the bowl. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Sheldon called to her once more before the door quietly closed, leaving him in an empty and all-too-quiet apartment. Sheldon looked around as if lost, the stood up and retrieved a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink so he could clean and think.

When Sheldon finally slept that night, his schedule having been thrown off completely, he dreamt of a quiet, watchful girl with cobalt eyes and short fringy hair whose breathy laugh tickled his ears. “Whitney,” he called out in his sleep, “she left me, Whitney. I’m all alone…”

Lyrics from Howie Day's "Collide"