aFireFist
Cameos in The Big Bang Theory
Chapter 11 - Part 1
The three-dimensional chess board sat between them on the coffee table, pieces stacked on clear levels that made the whole thing look like a parking garage for plastic knights. Leonard had been staring at the same level for four minutes. Sheldon had already moved twice and was waiting with his hands folded, posture perfect, eyes on the board like the outcome had been written down somewhere he could already see it.
"Your bishop is still on the lower tier," Sheldon said. "I moved the queen two turns ago. That is check."
Leonard pushed a pawn one square and immediately regretted it. The piece clicked against the plastic. "I know."
"You do not. If you knew, you would not have moved the pawn. The pawn does not address the check. It merely occupies a square that was already irrelevant."
"I'm thinking."
"You are delaying an outcome that has already occurred." Sheldon took the pawn with a knight that had been sitting in plain sight on the middle tier. He set the captured piece aside with the others. "Again."
Leonard reset the board without arguing. He lined the pieces up by size out of habit. Across the hall, a key turned in Penny's lock. The door opened. A suitcase wheel bumped the frame once, then again as she maneuvered it through. Leonard looked up. Sheldon did not.
Penny stepped in with a duffel on one shoulder and a smaller bag in her free hand. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot that had loosened on one side; a few strands stuck to her neck. The tank she had on for the drive was soft and stretched across her tits, the thin fabric pulled tight enough that the shape of them was obvious when she shifted the bag. The jeans sat low on her hips. A strip of bare skin showed above the waistband when she moved. She looked tired in the way people look after airports and family—eyes a little shadowed, shoulders lower than usual.
"Hey," she said. "I'm back. If anyone asks, Nebraska was fine."
Leonard stood. "How was it actually."
"Fine until Sunday. Then my uncle started coughing at dinner and my cousin got the same thing by morning and my mom spent the whole drive to the airport telling me I was going to catch it if I hugged anyone. Which I did. Twice. Once at the house and once at the curb because she started crying." She dropped the duffel by the door. It landed with a soft thud. "So. Home. What's wrong with the board."
Sheldon's head came up. His eyes moved from the chess pieces to her face, then to the duffel, then back. "You were exposed to an active respiratory illness."
Penny blinked. "I was in the same house as people who got a cold. Yes."
"When did symptoms first appear in the index case."
"I don't know. Saturday night? My uncle was fine at dinner and then he wasn't. He said his throat felt weird and then he was coughing into his sleeve."
"And you remained in the residence after the onset."
"I slept there. I didn't have a choice. My flight was Sunday."
Leonard stepped between them, one hand half-raised like he could physically block the next sentence. "She's fine, Sheldon. She looks fine."
"Appearance is not a diagnostic criterion." Sheldon stood. He did not move closer to Penny; he moved slightly back from the table, putting the coffee table between them. "Infectious agents can be transmitted prior to the appearance of symptoms. You have now entered a shared living space after prolonged contact with multiple symptomatic individuals. The duration of exposure increases the probability of carriage."
Penny set the smaller bag down. The tank pulled across her chest when she straightened. The soft weight of her tits shifted under the fabric. "I came home. I didn't bring a lab sample. I brought dirty laundry and a half-eaten bag of pretzels from the airport."
"You may have." Sheldon looked at Leonard. "We should isolate the apartment until we can confirm she is not shedding. Surface disinfection at minimum. Restricted access until a reasonable incubation window has passed."
Leonard's mouth opened. "That's not—"
"I can go," Penny said. Her voice had gone flat. She picked the duffel up again, the strap settling into the same groove on her shoulder. "I was just saying hi. I'll be across the hall if anyone decides I'm not a walking biohazard. You two can finish your weird parking-garage chess in peace."
She left. The door shut harder than it needed to. The sound carried. Leonard stood there with his hand still half-raised. Sheldon was already moving toward the kitchen.
Leonard turned on him. "You just made her feel like she had to leave her own building."
"I asked her to leave this unit. The building is not under my control. The hallway is a common area. She retains access." Sheldon opened the cabinet under the sink and came back with the spray bottle they used on the counters and a roll of paper towels. He wiped the door handle first, then the table edge, then the arm of the couch she had not sat on. The paper towel rasped against the fabric. Leonard watched and did not help.
"She's not sick," Leonard said.
"That is currently unconfirmed." Sheldon sprayed the chess board for good measure. One of the pieces rolled. He caught it with a paper towel and set it on a clean square, aligning it with the others. "I will also prepare cultures. If I become symptomatic, the data will be useful to whoever treats me. Early identification of the pathogen improves outcome probability."
"You're not going to get sick."
"Probability is not zero." Sheldon opened a cabinet and pulled out a box of lime gelatin. The box was half-empty from the last time someone had wanted dessert and changed their mind. "I do not have agar. This will have to serve as a growth medium. The sugar content is suboptimal but the gelatin will solidify and provide a surface."
Leonard stared at the box. "You're making Jell-O petri dishes."
"I am adapting available materials to a necessary task." Sheldon filled a glass with water and set it on the counter. He measured the powder with the same care he used for reagents, leveling the spoon against the box edge. "I will also require a throat swab. You can perform it. The sample should be taken from the posterior pharynx. I will talk you through the angle."
"No."
"If I lose consciousness in a hospital, the cultures and my notes may allow the attending physician to identify the pathogen before my condition deteriorates further. Time is a relevant variable in infectious processes."
"You're not going to a hospital. You're going to bed if you feel bad, which you don't. You feel fine. You're standing in the kitchen making Jell-O because Penny hugged her mom."
Sheldon ignored that. He measured gelatin powder into a bowl with the same care he used for reagents. The kettle clicked on. Leonard left him to it and went to his room. From the kitchen came the sound of the kettle heating and the low, precise narration Sheldon gave himself when he was working alone—temperatures, times, the exact moment the gelatin would need to be poured before it set in the pot.
An hour later Sheldon appeared in Leonard's doorway with a plastic measuring cup and a marker. The cup was the one they used for pancake batter. The handle had a small crack near the top from the last time it had been dropped in the sink. Sheldon held it out like it was equipment that belonged in a protocol.
"Place this in the bathroom," he said. "I will use it to quantify fluid intake and output. The data will help track systemic response if infection takes hold. Volume, color, frequency. All of it becomes relevant once fever begins."
Leonard took the cup. The plastic was warm from Sheldon's hand. He turned it once. "This is the pancake cup."
"It is a measuring vessel. Its prior use is irrelevant."
"We made pancakes in this yesterday. Blueberry. You complained about the distribution of the berries."
"I rinsed it. Thoroughly. With hot water and the blue dish soap. Residual batter is not a confounding variable." Sheldon turned the cup over. On the bottom, in small neat letters written with the same marker he was holding, someone had written URINE. The letters were centered. "The label is present. You simply failed to inspect the underside."
Leonard set the cup on the dresser like it might contaminate the wood. He did not want it near his bed. "You labeled the pancake cup for pee and didn't tell anyone."
"I labeled it. The information was available to anyone who examined the object completely. Most people do not examine the underside of measuring cups. That is an observation about habits, not a failure of labeling." Sheldon adjusted his glasses. "If I become unable to communicate, the cup and the cultures will still be here. That is the point of preparation. The data survives even if I do not."
He left. Leonard stayed where he was and did not move the cup. He looked at the URINE label for a long moment, then turned the cup right-side up again so he would not have to see it. From the kitchen came the sound of Sheldon pouring the gelatin into the small dishes he had found in the back of a cabinet. The kettle had already clicked off.
By midnight the apartment smelled like disinfectant and lime gelatin. The spray bottle sat on the counter with the cap off. Sheldon had arranged three small dishes on a tray and written the time on a sticky note in the same careful hand he used for equations. The note said 11:47 p.m. and nothing else. Leonard had not swabbed anyone's throat. He had stayed in his room with the door half-closed and listened to Sheldon narrate temperatures to himself until the narration stopped. He went to bed. Across the hall, Penny's light stayed on for a while—long enough that Leonard saw the thin line of it under his own door when he got up for water—and then went out.
Sunday morning started with shouting.
"Leonard."
The voice came from Sheldon's room, muffled by the comforter. Leonard sat up. The clock on the nightstand said 6:41. The room was still dark. His mouth tasted like sleep.
"Leonard. I require assistance."
Leonard did not answer. He pulled on jeans and a shirt in the dark, found his keys by feel on the dresser, and was at the front door before Sheldon called a third time. The measuring cup was still on his dresser. He left it there.
"My blanket has fallen. My sinuses hurt when I bend. Leonard."
The front door closed behind him. In the stairwell the air was cooler and smelled like the cleaning solution the landlord used on the steps. Leonard's phone rang before he reached the sidewalk. He answered it walking, one shoulder up against the morning chill.
"Where are you," Sheldon said. His voice was thicker than usual, congested at the edges.
"Lab."
"It is Sunday. The lab is closed. The keycard logs will show no entry."
"Emergency. They're training dogs to run centrifuges for blind scientists. I have to be here. It's a whole program. Very time-sensitive. The dogs only respond to the early shift."
There was a pause. Leonard kept walking. A car passed with its headlights still on.
"A dog is operating laboratory equipment," Sheldon said.
"Yes. Centrifuges. For blind scientists. They can't see the balance, so the dogs are learning to listen for the beep. It's complicated. I can't leave."
"That is an inefficient use of canine cognitive capacity. Dogs lack the fine motor control required for precise rotor loading. Also, the ethical review for animal-assisted instrumentation would have taken months." Sheldon coughed once, wet and low. "My temperature has been rising since approximately two a.m. The curve is consistent with exponential growth. Mucus has transitioned from clear to a milky green. I need soup."
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