The Doctoral Deficiency (1/5)
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Pairing(s): Gen (maybe Raj/Howard if you squint)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mention of stalking and spoilers for the Twilight series
Word Count:, 15,500
Summary: Four men, four doctorates. Since Sheldon has two, that leaves Mr. Wolowitz as the odd man out in the academic foursome. But what's the use of working at one of the most prestigious universities if you don't take advantage of the opportunities to get your slice of the higher education pie? Howard's been working on his doctorate, but now Sheldon's wormed his way on the dissertation committee with disastrous consequences. Can Leonard, Penny, Howard and Raj deal with the tribulations of angry Buffy fans, harassed university staff members and a flurry of mandatory university policy workshops that Sheldon somehow seems to avoid, all to help Howard get his Ph.D.? Stay tuned!
Acknowledgments: The show and its fantastic world does not belong to me. Thanks to curtana for the amazing and helpful beta-reading. I also bow down before the extremely talented kadaverous who produced this awesome art to accompany the story(spoilery for Part 4).
"Come on, Sheldon, spit it out!" Leonard demanded as they entered their building on the Caltech campus, the morning still cool and pleasant despite the smog warning already in effect. Certainly the weather couldn't excuse Sheldon's strangely quiet demeanour, Leonard thought, but then, what reasons did Sheldon need to seem unnerving? It was just today was much more unsettling than most days driving his roommate and colleague to campus.
Sheldon darted silent and resentful looks at his roommate as they made their way deeper into Lauritsen.
"You must already know the cause of my discontent," Sheldon finally retorted. "You have, obviously in error!, been ranked above me in the university’s annual review."
"What?" Leonard asked and then stopped dead in the hallway, letting a surprised grad student scramble to get past the two of them. "Wait, how do you know what I got in my annual review from Dr. Gablehauser and the dean, anyway?"
"I looked at your paperwork, of course," Sheldon said, dismissing the irrelevance of the question with one wave of his hand.
Leonard scowled. "That was in my locked file cabinet, in my office, right here," he said, gesturing ahead of them down the cheerless corridor punctuated only by closed doors and neglected bulletin boards.
"Child's play," Sheldon smirked airily. "You really should invest in a good lock for that filing cabinet, especially given what you tend to keep in the last hanging folder, you know, the one . . . ."
Leonard groaned. "You didn't?"
Sheldon's smirk grew for a moment as he resumed their path down the hallway of academic offices. "You can think that if you like, Leonard. But we should return to the point of the conversation which is to figure out in what Bizarro universe you can have performed your scholarly duties with more proficiency than I or will you admit to perpetrating a colossal fraud upon your colleagues?"
Leonard stopped in front of his office door and unlocked it. Under the door was shoved an envelope marked "Urgent: Personnel".
Groaning as he opened the manila envelope and slid the single sheet of paper out to read it, Leonard's expression darkened. "Oh, great. Another training seminar notice: health, safety and equity. I'm reminded that I have yet to attend the mandatory sessions. After all these years, you'd think they'd give up."
Sheldon sniffed. "I ignore those. My job is to think, not to perform 'facilitating exercises' with the masses."
Leonard threw the envelope in the trash and the memo onto his desk while Sheldon swept past his roommate and stood with hands on his hips, still obviously not willing to let his initial question drop. Leonard hung his windbreaker on the coathook and made his way around his desk to sit in his office chair.
"I don't suppose you'll accept that I actually can do this job better than you can, Sheldon," Leonard asked wearily.
Sheldon twitched and his brows furrowed. "Again, in what Bizarro universe would this be? Who won the Chancellor's Award, hm?"
Leonard sighed, letting his gaze roll skyward. "And who decided that the speech was a ‘pants-optional' ceremony?"
Sheldon crossed his arms and loftily turned his gaze out the window. "So? I still have outperformed you in every way, shape and form that matters in academia, to wit, in research productivity."
Raj popped his head around the corner at the last bit, obviously just on his way into the office as his bright blue jacket was tightly zipped even though there hadn’t been a drop of rain. "Yeah, man, ever since I started working with-"
"For," Sheldon interjected.
Raj frowned. "With Sheldon, I've had to admit that he's a publishing dynamo. Really blows you out of the water, Leonard, despite what the final review says. Frankly, your publication record wasn't that much better than mine for this past year," Raj finished up with a commiserating expression.
Leonard glanced back and forth at the two men, incredulously. "You let him see my annual review?"
Sheldon shrugged with a clear lack of concern. "Why not?"
Leonard shook his head in weary resignation as he slumped further back in his chair. "Look, there are a lot of factors that contribute to our standing in the annual reviews. You know that."
Raj nodded with a smile that suggested he was simply humouring Leonard while Sheldon raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "It's not just research and even that has to take into account not only publications, but grants and conferences and all of that. Beyond that, there's still teaching and service."
Sheldon scoffed. "I teach," he huffed.
"You lost all of the students in your graduate seminar before the second week. That doesn't count as teaching, Sheldon," Leonard explained with a note of disbelief.
Raj turned to face Sheldon. "He is right, about that Sheldon. The grad students call you Crazy Cooper and there's a betting pool that on how long before the next poor sucker who's convinced to take you on as their supervisor is committed to a mental hospital or leaves the program."
"Oh, come on," Sheldon protested. "Those were isolated events. Anyway, who signs your paycheck, Koothrappali?"
Raj glanced at the other two men in the room, appearing slightly confused. "Nobody signs my paycheck. I get it electronically deposited."
Leonard sighed as he shook his head. "It's an expression, Raj. I think that Sheldon's reminding you that you owe your current funding to him and that you're supposed to be on his side."
With an angry stare fixed on his roommate, the shorter physicist continued heatedly, "Which, if we're honest here, you really shouldn't be because you're not involved in this at all. In fact, I can't believe that you thought it was appropriate to poke into my annual review in any case!"
Sheldon just shifted his gaze to the far wall of the room, ignoring the others with an airy disdain. Raj finally seemed to cotton onto the tense atmosphere and took the opportunity to escape. "See you later, dude," he hissed to Leonard, as he disappeared back into the hallway.
In his absence, Sheldon let his lower lip stick out in an aggravated pout that Leonard recognized well. His obsessive roommate needed to solve the problem of his unexpectedly inferior standing in the annual reports. Leonard settled back in his chair with an exasperated sigh. "Look, Sheldon," he began, "the dean insisted that to get better than satisfactory standing in the annual review, you had to score well in two of the three criteria: research, teaching and service."
Sheldon waved one hand dismissively. "My teaching's too good for the students in this department, that's just the plain and simple truth. But even if, for some completely unknown reason, my colleagues fail to see that, I see no reason why I should not be esteemed more highly than you!"
Leonard rolled his eyes. "How about service, Sheldon?"
"My research is my service! Service to humanity!"
Again, Leonard shook his head in exasperation. "Not according to the university. Service is what you contribute beyond research and teaching. You know, like sit on faculty committees or serve as someone's thesis reader. I served on two university-wide committees and was part of three doctoral defenses, including one for chemistry. Whereas I believe that this past year, you had the singular distinction in the department of failing to serve on a single university committee. That's worse than Dr. Newton who's been in a complete body-cast for the last four months since his car accident but still managed to contribute to the curriculum and speakers' committees via email. You couldn't even manage to stay on the faculty lounge committee when all they do is rubber-stamp the coffee and magazine budget each year!"
Sheldon's eyes flashed angrily as he leaned forward, "What do you expect when they insisted on keeping subscriptions to Newsweek, The Economist and Time instead of buying comics! Why, for those prices, we could have gotten a fair selection of DC and Marvel titles!"
Leonard warded off Sheldon's outrage. With his hands still upraised, he continued. "Look, you need to have at least something on your CV in teaching or service in order for Dr. Gablehauser and the dean to give you a better rating. It's as simple as that. And, no," he added, seeing a cunning expression appear on Sheldon's face, "you can't just make something up. It has to be real."
Sheldon arched an eyebrow dismissively as he made to leave Leonard's office. "Unlike you, I have the highest of professional standards. I'll find something to add as service and get Dr. Gablehauser to revise his review. Just you wait and see!"
Leonard leaned back in his chair, already exhausted even though he'd only been at the office for fifteen minutes. "Yay?" he said weakly.
The cafeteria was half empty so it was easy to spot Howard, garishly dressed in a green turtleneck and gold short-sleeved vest, and Raj, somewhat more soberly attired in red, white and blue, already at their customary table. "Hi," Leonard offered in a lackadaisical fashion as he dropped his tray into place and slumped into his seat.
"Good to see you, too," Howard said, somewhat snidely.
Leonard rolled his eyes. "Not you, too," he grumbled. "Look, I'm sure Raj has told you how fun my morning's been. Managing Sheldon is a full-time job."
Raj, mouth full of sandwich, could do little but nod with an earnest expression. Whether it was in support of Leonard or Howard, neither of the other men could tell.
Howard stared across the table at Leonard. "You have no idea, do you?"
Leonard's brow furrowed in confusion. "No idea what? Don't tell me you have a problem with my annual review now, too?"
Howard waved one hand dismissively while the other stirred his mixed vegetables. "No, but what you've inspired Sheldon to do, well, that’s where I have my problem."
"Huh?" Leonard's response only made Howard splutter.
Raj intervened, having swallowed in the meantime. "You haven't heard, Leonard? It's bad. Very, very bad." Raj's mouth drooped into a mournful grimace as his gaze drifted away from the table.
Leonard glanced back and forth at his friends. "What's so bad? What did I do?"
From over his shoulder, Sheldon's voice answered. "You inspired me to find a service obligation to fulfill. I stopped by the department office and discovered that with Dr. Newton's physiotherapy schedule, he's had to drop some of his service obligations. I volunteered to take on one of the more, erm, interesting duties. I'll be serving as the internal external examiner on a doctoral dissertation in engineering for one of Dr. Arlin's students. One very interesting student, as a matter of fact."
Twisting around in his seat, Leonard gazed up in confusion at his smug roommate. "Um, congratulations?" he offered weakly.
"That does it," roared Howard, throwing down his napkin and picking up his tray, all in an obvious huff.
Sheldon looked after his departing figure as he took his own seat at the table. "Strange," he remarked while arranging his napkins and cutlery (carefully checking for four tines and not three on his fork, and that all were perfectly aligned).
After settling his lunch tray to his satisfaction, Sheldon looked at the other two physicists sitting open-mouthed at the table. "Whatever is the matter with Howard?" he asked in a mild, wondering tone.
Raj huffed incredulously. "How can you ask that, Sheldon, after what you just said?"
Leonard raised a hand to interrupt. "Look, will someone fill me in on what's the matter, here? Why is Howard upset and what does it have to do with Sheldon's sitting on a doctoral defense committee?"
Raj glanced around the room furtively, seeming to assure himself that no one was listening in. He leaned toward Leonard. "Okay, this has been top-secret for a while, you get it?"
Leonard scrunched his nose. "No, but do continue."
Raj sighed. "Howard has been working on his dissertation. He's ready to defend and Dr. Newton was on his committee until Sheldon took over. Now Howard's pretty sure that he's never going to get his doctorate thanks to Sheldon's interfering." The last was said with a pointed glare.
Sheldon looked up briefly from his precisely arranged lunch plate. "What ever do you mean, Raj? I'm sure he'll get his doctorate, eventually. It's just going to take a fair bit more work. You know, nothing worth having comes without real effort. And so on and so on."
Leonard took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The effort didn't seem to relieve much stress, however, as his expression remained pained. "Okay, let me see if I got this right," Leonard began. "You, Sheldon, got appointed to Howard’s doctoral dissertation committee as your university service work for the year?
Sheldon's smug smile served as an answer but Leonard was clearly still not following everything. He turned toward Raj. "You knew about this?"
Raj's eyebrows jumped. "Well, only for the last year and a bit. I saw his registration form one day when I went over to his house and asked about it. Well, pretty well dragged it out of him, actually." The other physicist carried on in detailing the elements of Howard's thesis program and how he'd been working on it for all these years with no one the wiser (helped, of course, by Sheldon's easy dismissal of anything that Howard and the others did in Applied Physics as just so much Oompa-Loompa-ing).
"His supervisor signed off on his final copy to go to the committee just two weeks ago, so now it's pretty much over except for the defense," Raj finished.
"And you didn't tell us?" Leonard whined at the end of the explanation.
"He made me pinky-swear," Raj admitted.
Sheldon nodded. "Pinky-swears are serious. Still, this is an interesting development. Now that I have a chance to add my views as a member of his committee, it's possible that, with a few months more of work, something passable can come out of his thesis. Isn't this a lucky break? Anyway, I had the graduate office send over a copy this morning. I've already gone through it once and my red pen is a-raring for another run-through, so if you'll excuse me. I'll see you when it's time to go to the Cheesecake Factory. After all, it's Cheeseburger Night!" Ferrying his empty lunch tray back to the clean-out, Sheldon was clearly eager to get back to work which was, in this case, the evisceration of Howard's dreams and ambitions.
Leonard groaned, collapsing forward on the table. His lunch tray lurched away from him. "This is going to be bad, isn't it?"
"You said it," Raj confirmed glumly. "Sheldon is going to skewer him. Instead of defending this term, Howard will be lucky to defend this decade."
Leonard lifted his head from the table enough to nod in agreement. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked.
Raj tilted his head, considering the question. "Short of sending Sheldon on a solo polar expedition, I can't think of anything. You?"
"Me neither," Leonard agreed. Sighing, he levered himself up from the cafeteria table. "Come on. I think we have to go apologize to Howard."
"And maybe stop him from planning to murder Sheldon in his sleep," Raj added.
"Haven't we all dreamed up a few murderous schemes of our own?" Leonard asked, as they dropped off their trays and headed off to Howard's lab space.
Raj had to agree.
By dinnertime, Howard had cooled off enough that he could sit at a table with Sheldon and not try to strangle the other man. Barely.
Howard's anger bubbled up in the terse, one-word answers he offered to any of the questions Sheldon asked and the oh-so-sarcastic edge to his voice when he gave Penny his order.
Excusing himself from the table, Howard stalked off toward the washrooms while Penny stared after him.
"What's up with Howard today?" she asked the table in general. As Sheldon opened his mouth to answer, Leonard rushed in.
"We found out that Howard's been working on a doctoral dissertation and is almost ready to defend his thesis," Leonard said, then looked uncomfortably at Sheldon sitting beside him. "Or at least, he hopes he is."
"Whoa," Penny said, in obvious surprise, "so it's Dr. Wolowitz now?"
Raj shook his head furiously, glaring meaningfully at Sheldon.
"Or not," Penny concluded.
Sheldon glanced sideways at Leonard, then, with a small smile, explained to Penny, "One of the professors who was assigned to review Howard's dissertation suffered a terrible accident this year and is doing some extensive physiotherapy. So I volunteered to take over his spot on the committee. Needless to say, Howard's dissertation is going to require a great deal of change in order to meet up to my standards. So I'm afraid that the 'almost ready' part of Leonard's statement might not hold true."
Penny regarded Sheldon rather as if he'd spoken in a foreign language. "Huh, okay. Well, that doesn't sound too good now, does it."
Raj stared fixedly at the table and Leonard made an abortive throat-slitting gesture that only Penny could see. "Uh, okay, well, I'll take your orders in, then, won't I? And, erm, have fun."
Penny escaped as Howard returned to the table, fixing Sheldon with a resentful stare as he resumed his seat. Raj sighed and, freed of the constraints Penny's feminine presence made on his voice, said with some exasperation, "Dude, let's just drop it, okay?"
"Sure," Howard replied. "As long as he-" the shorter man paused for an intense stare across the table at Sheldon "-promises to drop the subject."
"Why, certainly," Sheldon said agreeably. "After all, I'm sure we have much better things to discuss. Like tomorrow's comic book release?"
Leonard seized upon the change of subject. "You betcha! I can't wait to get my hands on the latest Batman Beyond!"
Raj nodded eagerly as he slurped at his Sprite. "Me, too. But I am not going to pick up the latest Spider-Man."
"Agreed," Sheldon pronounced. "I can not forgive Joe Quesada for the atrocities he's inflicted on Peter Parker."
Even Howard loosened up enough to weigh in on this important issue. "As if any man in his right mind would give up marriage to Mary Jane Watson to keep Aunt May alive. I mean, what? The old lady's gotta be 130, amiright?"
Fortunately, answers were cut off as Penny arrived with their appetizers. But the topic of comic releases segued into console games so that the rest of the evening went by fairly painlessly.
At least, that's what Leonard thought until Raj pulled him aside after they paid their bills.
"Dude," he hissed, looking at the ficus plant in the corner so that no sight of a woman could render him mute, "we have to do something to help out Howard. And soon! Before Sheldon ruins everything."
Leonard whispered back, "I know, but what?"
Raj looked around helplessly, catching a glance of a woman coming in the entrance. Whatever he might have said ended with a screech.
Leonard shrugged. "Tomorrow," he mouthed to Raj as they left the restaurant and waved at Howard, already zipping off on his scooter.
"Whatever took you so long?" Sheldon asked. Before either of the other men could respond, he cut them off. "It doesn't matter. Let's get home, Leonard. I have a lot of work to do if Howard's thesis is ever going to be defensible!"
Leonard rubbed his hairline gingerly. The headache that had been threatening for hours was definitely coming home to roost. "Oh, joy," was all he managed as they made their way to his car.
Part Two
X-posted from Dreamwidth. (
comments there.)
Pairing(s): Gen (maybe Raj/Howard if you squint)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mention of stalking and spoilers for the Twilight series
Word Count:, 15,500
Summary: Four men, four doctorates. Since Sheldon has two, that leaves Mr. Wolowitz as the odd man out in the academic foursome. But what's the use of working at one of the most prestigious universities if you don't take advantage of the opportunities to get your slice of the higher education pie? Howard's been working on his doctorate, but now Sheldon's wormed his way on the dissertation committee with disastrous consequences. Can Leonard, Penny, Howard and Raj deal with the tribulations of angry Buffy fans, harassed university staff members and a flurry of mandatory university policy workshops that Sheldon somehow seems to avoid, all to help Howard get his Ph.D.? Stay tuned!
Acknowledgments: The show and its fantastic world does not belong to me. Thanks to curtana for the amazing and helpful beta-reading. I also bow down before the extremely talented kadaverous who produced this awesome art to accompany the story(spoilery for Part 4).
"Come on, Sheldon, spit it out!" Leonard demanded as they entered their building on the Caltech campus, the morning still cool and pleasant despite the smog warning already in effect. Certainly the weather couldn't excuse Sheldon's strangely quiet demeanour, Leonard thought, but then, what reasons did Sheldon need to seem unnerving? It was just today was much more unsettling than most days driving his roommate and colleague to campus.
Sheldon darted silent and resentful looks at his roommate as they made their way deeper into Lauritsen.
"You must already know the cause of my discontent," Sheldon finally retorted. "You have, obviously in error!, been ranked above me in the university’s annual review."
"What?" Leonard asked and then stopped dead in the hallway, letting a surprised grad student scramble to get past the two of them. "Wait, how do you know what I got in my annual review from Dr. Gablehauser and the dean, anyway?"
"I looked at your paperwork, of course," Sheldon said, dismissing the irrelevance of the question with one wave of his hand.
Leonard scowled. "That was in my locked file cabinet, in my office, right here," he said, gesturing ahead of them down the cheerless corridor punctuated only by closed doors and neglected bulletin boards.
"Child's play," Sheldon smirked airily. "You really should invest in a good lock for that filing cabinet, especially given what you tend to keep in the last hanging folder, you know, the one . . . ."
Leonard groaned. "You didn't?"
Sheldon's smirk grew for a moment as he resumed their path down the hallway of academic offices. "You can think that if you like, Leonard. But we should return to the point of the conversation which is to figure out in what Bizarro universe you can have performed your scholarly duties with more proficiency than I or will you admit to perpetrating a colossal fraud upon your colleagues?"
Leonard stopped in front of his office door and unlocked it. Under the door was shoved an envelope marked "Urgent: Personnel".
Groaning as he opened the manila envelope and slid the single sheet of paper out to read it, Leonard's expression darkened. "Oh, great. Another training seminar notice: health, safety and equity. I'm reminded that I have yet to attend the mandatory sessions. After all these years, you'd think they'd give up."
Sheldon sniffed. "I ignore those. My job is to think, not to perform 'facilitating exercises' with the masses."
Leonard threw the envelope in the trash and the memo onto his desk while Sheldon swept past his roommate and stood with hands on his hips, still obviously not willing to let his initial question drop. Leonard hung his windbreaker on the coathook and made his way around his desk to sit in his office chair.
"I don't suppose you'll accept that I actually can do this job better than you can, Sheldon," Leonard asked wearily.
Sheldon twitched and his brows furrowed. "Again, in what Bizarro universe would this be? Who won the Chancellor's Award, hm?"
Leonard sighed, letting his gaze roll skyward. "And who decided that the speech was a ‘pants-optional' ceremony?"
Sheldon crossed his arms and loftily turned his gaze out the window. "So? I still have outperformed you in every way, shape and form that matters in academia, to wit, in research productivity."
Raj popped his head around the corner at the last bit, obviously just on his way into the office as his bright blue jacket was tightly zipped even though there hadn’t been a drop of rain. "Yeah, man, ever since I started working with-"
"For," Sheldon interjected.
Raj frowned. "With Sheldon, I've had to admit that he's a publishing dynamo. Really blows you out of the water, Leonard, despite what the final review says. Frankly, your publication record wasn't that much better than mine for this past year," Raj finished up with a commiserating expression.
Leonard glanced back and forth at the two men, incredulously. "You let him see my annual review?"
Sheldon shrugged with a clear lack of concern. "Why not?"
Leonard shook his head in weary resignation as he slumped further back in his chair. "Look, there are a lot of factors that contribute to our standing in the annual reviews. You know that."
Raj nodded with a smile that suggested he was simply humouring Leonard while Sheldon raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "It's not just research and even that has to take into account not only publications, but grants and conferences and all of that. Beyond that, there's still teaching and service."
Sheldon scoffed. "I teach," he huffed.
"You lost all of the students in your graduate seminar before the second week. That doesn't count as teaching, Sheldon," Leonard explained with a note of disbelief.
Raj turned to face Sheldon. "He is right, about that Sheldon. The grad students call you Crazy Cooper and there's a betting pool that on how long before the next poor sucker who's convinced to take you on as their supervisor is committed to a mental hospital or leaves the program."
"Oh, come on," Sheldon protested. "Those were isolated events. Anyway, who signs your paycheck, Koothrappali?"
Raj glanced at the other two men in the room, appearing slightly confused. "Nobody signs my paycheck. I get it electronically deposited."
Leonard sighed as he shook his head. "It's an expression, Raj. I think that Sheldon's reminding you that you owe your current funding to him and that you're supposed to be on his side."
With an angry stare fixed on his roommate, the shorter physicist continued heatedly, "Which, if we're honest here, you really shouldn't be because you're not involved in this at all. In fact, I can't believe that you thought it was appropriate to poke into my annual review in any case!"
Sheldon just shifted his gaze to the far wall of the room, ignoring the others with an airy disdain. Raj finally seemed to cotton onto the tense atmosphere and took the opportunity to escape. "See you later, dude," he hissed to Leonard, as he disappeared back into the hallway.
In his absence, Sheldon let his lower lip stick out in an aggravated pout that Leonard recognized well. His obsessive roommate needed to solve the problem of his unexpectedly inferior standing in the annual reports. Leonard settled back in his chair with an exasperated sigh. "Look, Sheldon," he began, "the dean insisted that to get better than satisfactory standing in the annual review, you had to score well in two of the three criteria: research, teaching and service."
Sheldon waved one hand dismissively. "My teaching's too good for the students in this department, that's just the plain and simple truth. But even if, for some completely unknown reason, my colleagues fail to see that, I see no reason why I should not be esteemed more highly than you!"
Leonard rolled his eyes. "How about service, Sheldon?"
"My research is my service! Service to humanity!"
Again, Leonard shook his head in exasperation. "Not according to the university. Service is what you contribute beyond research and teaching. You know, like sit on faculty committees or serve as someone's thesis reader. I served on two university-wide committees and was part of three doctoral defenses, including one for chemistry. Whereas I believe that this past year, you had the singular distinction in the department of failing to serve on a single university committee. That's worse than Dr. Newton who's been in a complete body-cast for the last four months since his car accident but still managed to contribute to the curriculum and speakers' committees via email. You couldn't even manage to stay on the faculty lounge committee when all they do is rubber-stamp the coffee and magazine budget each year!"
Sheldon's eyes flashed angrily as he leaned forward, "What do you expect when they insisted on keeping subscriptions to Newsweek, The Economist and Time instead of buying comics! Why, for those prices, we could have gotten a fair selection of DC and Marvel titles!"
Leonard warded off Sheldon's outrage. With his hands still upraised, he continued. "Look, you need to have at least something on your CV in teaching or service in order for Dr. Gablehauser and the dean to give you a better rating. It's as simple as that. And, no," he added, seeing a cunning expression appear on Sheldon's face, "you can't just make something up. It has to be real."
Sheldon arched an eyebrow dismissively as he made to leave Leonard's office. "Unlike you, I have the highest of professional standards. I'll find something to add as service and get Dr. Gablehauser to revise his review. Just you wait and see!"
Leonard leaned back in his chair, already exhausted even though he'd only been at the office for fifteen minutes. "Yay?" he said weakly.
The cafeteria was half empty so it was easy to spot Howard, garishly dressed in a green turtleneck and gold short-sleeved vest, and Raj, somewhat more soberly attired in red, white and blue, already at their customary table. "Hi," Leonard offered in a lackadaisical fashion as he dropped his tray into place and slumped into his seat.
"Good to see you, too," Howard said, somewhat snidely.
Leonard rolled his eyes. "Not you, too," he grumbled. "Look, I'm sure Raj has told you how fun my morning's been. Managing Sheldon is a full-time job."
Raj, mouth full of sandwich, could do little but nod with an earnest expression. Whether it was in support of Leonard or Howard, neither of the other men could tell.
Howard stared across the table at Leonard. "You have no idea, do you?"
Leonard's brow furrowed in confusion. "No idea what? Don't tell me you have a problem with my annual review now, too?"
Howard waved one hand dismissively while the other stirred his mixed vegetables. "No, but what you've inspired Sheldon to do, well, that’s where I have my problem."
"Huh?" Leonard's response only made Howard splutter.
Raj intervened, having swallowed in the meantime. "You haven't heard, Leonard? It's bad. Very, very bad." Raj's mouth drooped into a mournful grimace as his gaze drifted away from the table.
Leonard glanced back and forth at his friends. "What's so bad? What did I do?"
From over his shoulder, Sheldon's voice answered. "You inspired me to find a service obligation to fulfill. I stopped by the department office and discovered that with Dr. Newton's physiotherapy schedule, he's had to drop some of his service obligations. I volunteered to take on one of the more, erm, interesting duties. I'll be serving as the internal external examiner on a doctoral dissertation in engineering for one of Dr. Arlin's students. One very interesting student, as a matter of fact."
Twisting around in his seat, Leonard gazed up in confusion at his smug roommate. "Um, congratulations?" he offered weakly.
"That does it," roared Howard, throwing down his napkin and picking up his tray, all in an obvious huff.
Sheldon looked after his departing figure as he took his own seat at the table. "Strange," he remarked while arranging his napkins and cutlery (carefully checking for four tines and not three on his fork, and that all were perfectly aligned).
After settling his lunch tray to his satisfaction, Sheldon looked at the other two physicists sitting open-mouthed at the table. "Whatever is the matter with Howard?" he asked in a mild, wondering tone.
Raj huffed incredulously. "How can you ask that, Sheldon, after what you just said?"
Leonard raised a hand to interrupt. "Look, will someone fill me in on what's the matter, here? Why is Howard upset and what does it have to do with Sheldon's sitting on a doctoral defense committee?"
Raj glanced around the room furtively, seeming to assure himself that no one was listening in. He leaned toward Leonard. "Okay, this has been top-secret for a while, you get it?"
Leonard scrunched his nose. "No, but do continue."
Raj sighed. "Howard has been working on his dissertation. He's ready to defend and Dr. Newton was on his committee until Sheldon took over. Now Howard's pretty sure that he's never going to get his doctorate thanks to Sheldon's interfering." The last was said with a pointed glare.
Sheldon looked up briefly from his precisely arranged lunch plate. "What ever do you mean, Raj? I'm sure he'll get his doctorate, eventually. It's just going to take a fair bit more work. You know, nothing worth having comes without real effort. And so on and so on."
Leonard took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The effort didn't seem to relieve much stress, however, as his expression remained pained. "Okay, let me see if I got this right," Leonard began. "You, Sheldon, got appointed to Howard’s doctoral dissertation committee as your university service work for the year?
Sheldon's smug smile served as an answer but Leonard was clearly still not following everything. He turned toward Raj. "You knew about this?"
Raj's eyebrows jumped. "Well, only for the last year and a bit. I saw his registration form one day when I went over to his house and asked about it. Well, pretty well dragged it out of him, actually." The other physicist carried on in detailing the elements of Howard's thesis program and how he'd been working on it for all these years with no one the wiser (helped, of course, by Sheldon's easy dismissal of anything that Howard and the others did in Applied Physics as just so much Oompa-Loompa-ing).
"His supervisor signed off on his final copy to go to the committee just two weeks ago, so now it's pretty much over except for the defense," Raj finished.
"And you didn't tell us?" Leonard whined at the end of the explanation.
"He made me pinky-swear," Raj admitted.
Sheldon nodded. "Pinky-swears are serious. Still, this is an interesting development. Now that I have a chance to add my views as a member of his committee, it's possible that, with a few months more of work, something passable can come out of his thesis. Isn't this a lucky break? Anyway, I had the graduate office send over a copy this morning. I've already gone through it once and my red pen is a-raring for another run-through, so if you'll excuse me. I'll see you when it's time to go to the Cheesecake Factory. After all, it's Cheeseburger Night!" Ferrying his empty lunch tray back to the clean-out, Sheldon was clearly eager to get back to work which was, in this case, the evisceration of Howard's dreams and ambitions.
Leonard groaned, collapsing forward on the table. His lunch tray lurched away from him. "This is going to be bad, isn't it?"
"You said it," Raj confirmed glumly. "Sheldon is going to skewer him. Instead of defending this term, Howard will be lucky to defend this decade."
Leonard lifted his head from the table enough to nod in agreement. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked.
Raj tilted his head, considering the question. "Short of sending Sheldon on a solo polar expedition, I can't think of anything. You?"
"Me neither," Leonard agreed. Sighing, he levered himself up from the cafeteria table. "Come on. I think we have to go apologize to Howard."
"And maybe stop him from planning to murder Sheldon in his sleep," Raj added.
"Haven't we all dreamed up a few murderous schemes of our own?" Leonard asked, as they dropped off their trays and headed off to Howard's lab space.
Raj had to agree.
By dinnertime, Howard had cooled off enough that he could sit at a table with Sheldon and not try to strangle the other man. Barely.
Howard's anger bubbled up in the terse, one-word answers he offered to any of the questions Sheldon asked and the oh-so-sarcastic edge to his voice when he gave Penny his order.
Excusing himself from the table, Howard stalked off toward the washrooms while Penny stared after him.
"What's up with Howard today?" she asked the table in general. As Sheldon opened his mouth to answer, Leonard rushed in.
"We found out that Howard's been working on a doctoral dissertation and is almost ready to defend his thesis," Leonard said, then looked uncomfortably at Sheldon sitting beside him. "Or at least, he hopes he is."
"Whoa," Penny said, in obvious surprise, "so it's Dr. Wolowitz now?"
Raj shook his head furiously, glaring meaningfully at Sheldon.
"Or not," Penny concluded.
Sheldon glanced sideways at Leonard, then, with a small smile, explained to Penny, "One of the professors who was assigned to review Howard's dissertation suffered a terrible accident this year and is doing some extensive physiotherapy. So I volunteered to take over his spot on the committee. Needless to say, Howard's dissertation is going to require a great deal of change in order to meet up to my standards. So I'm afraid that the 'almost ready' part of Leonard's statement might not hold true."
Penny regarded Sheldon rather as if he'd spoken in a foreign language. "Huh, okay. Well, that doesn't sound too good now, does it."
Raj stared fixedly at the table and Leonard made an abortive throat-slitting gesture that only Penny could see. "Uh, okay, well, I'll take your orders in, then, won't I? And, erm, have fun."
Penny escaped as Howard returned to the table, fixing Sheldon with a resentful stare as he resumed his seat. Raj sighed and, freed of the constraints Penny's feminine presence made on his voice, said with some exasperation, "Dude, let's just drop it, okay?"
"Sure," Howard replied. "As long as he-" the shorter man paused for an intense stare across the table at Sheldon "-promises to drop the subject."
"Why, certainly," Sheldon said agreeably. "After all, I'm sure we have much better things to discuss. Like tomorrow's comic book release?"
Leonard seized upon the change of subject. "You betcha! I can't wait to get my hands on the latest Batman Beyond!"
Raj nodded eagerly as he slurped at his Sprite. "Me, too. But I am not going to pick up the latest Spider-Man."
"Agreed," Sheldon pronounced. "I can not forgive Joe Quesada for the atrocities he's inflicted on Peter Parker."
Even Howard loosened up enough to weigh in on this important issue. "As if any man in his right mind would give up marriage to Mary Jane Watson to keep Aunt May alive. I mean, what? The old lady's gotta be 130, amiright?"
Fortunately, answers were cut off as Penny arrived with their appetizers. But the topic of comic releases segued into console games so that the rest of the evening went by fairly painlessly.
At least, that's what Leonard thought until Raj pulled him aside after they paid their bills.
"Dude," he hissed, looking at the ficus plant in the corner so that no sight of a woman could render him mute, "we have to do something to help out Howard. And soon! Before Sheldon ruins everything."
Leonard whispered back, "I know, but what?"
Raj looked around helplessly, catching a glance of a woman coming in the entrance. Whatever he might have said ended with a screech.
Leonard shrugged. "Tomorrow," he mouthed to Raj as they left the restaurant and waved at Howard, already zipping off on his scooter.
"Whatever took you so long?" Sheldon asked. Before either of the other men could respond, he cut them off. "It doesn't matter. Let's get home, Leonard. I have a lot of work to do if Howard's thesis is ever going to be defensible!"
Leonard rubbed his hairline gingerly. The headache that had been threatening for hours was definitely coming home to roost. "Oh, joy," was all he managed as they made their way to his car.
Part Two
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