But Fear Itself (for ishie!!) (Part 1)
“Penny,” said Sheldon warningly as she dangled the tip of her pizza into her mouth. “I don’t want any of that getting on the couch.”
Penny had to put off answering for several seconds as she dried to chew the mozzarella dangling past her lips. “I’m not in your spot,” she finally pointed out, though she could imagine the arguments bubbling up in his brain as she spoke, “so what do you care?” She gave him a wide exaggerated smile.
“Why do I care?” said Sheldon in the shocked fussy voice he used for just when he would begin to scold her. Then suddenly he paused, looked alert and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Penny went back to eating her pizza and went so far as settle herself even deeper into the couch. She felt very comfortable.
“Well,” said Sheldon, examining his phone. “Amy Farrah Fowler has arrived safely at her childhood home in Douglas, Wyoming.” He put away the phone carefully and then turned to her. “Now Penny, as I was saying about pizza on my couch---”
“I can’t believe Amy and her mother just decided to take that road trip,” interrupted Penny, wiggling her toes defiantly on the couch cushions.
“Well,” said Sheldon huffily. “They had been planning to take a trip for some time.”
“And they’ll be gone all summer,” said Penny in a mock sad voice. “Awww won’t you miss your little girlfriend?”
“No Penny.” Sheldon had seized his own piece of pizza. “I admit that at one time, I felt that I needed Amy’s presence in my life, but I have found that the ‘shine’ has gone off that relationship as they say. Of late, I have found Amy to be increasingly uninteresting and the demands she placed on me are fast becoming insupportable.”
Penny actually stopped chewing to stare at him. “You---you broke up?”
Sheldon paused in the act of sipping his soda to say, “You could say that,” then finished his sip.
Penny did not know what to make of this, or how she felt about it. She had been used to thinking Sheldon and Amy’s oddball relationship to be cute though strange, but she found that she was not feeling particularly distressed by its conclusion. She sipped her own soda while she thought about that and set it down on the coffee table.
“Penny, coasters---”
“It’s gonna be a little weird around here the next few months huh? With Bernadette visiting relatives with Howard while they make wedding plans. Amy’s gone. Raj is visiting his family and Leonard…where is Leonard?”
“He has some experiment to do at the university, and he once again needs to conduct them after hours. We won’t be seeing him by daylight for quite some time except when he sleepwalks through here to his bedroom.”
“Well I guess it’s just you and me then,” said Penny loudly and cheerfully. A piece of cheese fell of her pizza onto the couch cushion.”
“Penny!” snapped Sheldon.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Look it wipes right off.”
The inevitable lecture came anyway while she applied herself with napkins and followed Sheldon’s instructions until the cushion was clean.
Sheldon inspected the spot suspiciously. “Considering the state of your apartment,” he said scathingly when Penny protested, “I need to be sure you’ve done a proper job.”
“It’s not like you’re all that tidy,” said Penny stung, casting her eye around the apartment and knowing once again she was setting herself for a losing argument.
“Please,” said Sheldon loftily. “Tell me one task I have failed to complete. Especially without Leonard being around during the day time breaking rules in the Roommate Agreement, I can assure you our home is spotless.”
“Well…well….well!” She looked around the apartment and brightened. “You, Sheldon Cooper, have not opened your mail as yet.”
“What!”
“Yes,” said Penny, grabbing at the straw and running with it. “You should open your mail as soon as possible. Who knows what important messages you need to act on.”
“I will have you know, I open my mail everyday. I just have not gotten around to---”
“No time like the present,” said Penny, steering him over to his desk. He sat down looking as if he were going to protest more, then unexpectedly he turned coolly and began examining his letters.
Penny finished her pizza in peace, and settled down. She was not in a hurry to move.
She glanced at Sheldon who was deep in thought, going through his correspondence.
“Anything interesting?” she called.
“Only bills,” said Sheldon carelessly. “This one is for Leonard. This one is an invitation for me to speak before university alumni. Of course I won’t be going.” He tossed it toward the bin, and missed. Not surprised at all, thought Penny, watching it drift to the ground.
“Why? Will the number of people in the group go over your requirements for a crowd?”
“That’s the least of my worries,” said Sheldon, giving her a sharp sideways look. “My trauma from my last experience has gone far toward augmenting my original fear.”
A pang of uneasiness stabbed at Penny as it always did when anyone brought up Sheldon’s stripping incident at the awards banquet, but she felt compelled to go on with the careless attitude she had always taken about the incident. “Oh come on sweetie, you got a little drunk and…”
“And I humiliated myself in front of an audience of my peers,” said Sheldon in a surprisingly sharp tone. “Can you imagine that Penny? I didn’t get drunk and expose myself at some brainless frat party. People who are always watching and hoping for me to make a mistake and make a fool of myself saw me. Surely you can appreciate some of the painfulness of that situation?”
“I didn’t know you would do it. I didn’t even know that you would get that drunk so quickly,” said Penny, though she flushed as she thought about it.
“But you, my friends, stood there and watched me,” said Sheldon. He gazed at Penny wide eyed. “When you saw I was impaired you should have helped me, protected me. Isn’t that what friends do?”
Penny squirmed a little and thought that he was right. She could not imagine that Sheldon, who had his own sense of propriety, would have allowed her to behave like that without at least telling her firmly to stop. She had half felt early on that she should have apologized to him, and she had convinced herself that it was too late, and that it was better to let the memory die, but she saw now that Sheldon had been more hurt by the incident than she had realized. She bit her lip.
Sheldon had turned back to his correspondence, with the expression she thought of as his pouting face. Penny jumped to her feet and caught up the discarded letter from the floor.
“You should totally do this anyway. Isn’t this an honor to be asked?”
“I suppose it would be for some.”
“Then you should do it Sheldon. You shouldn’t give up. One little incident….” He looked at her. “I’ll help you.”
“I think I’ve had enough of your form of assistance Penny.”
“Let me make it up to you. I’m so sorry for what happened. You have to forgive me, but let me try to help you this time. I’m an actress; we’re trained to speak in front of people. We could use the techniques I learned in my classes. Come on. I promise I’ll make a real effort.”
Sheldon looked at her hard as if he were contemplating her suggestion, then he said loftily, “No I don’t think so.”
“Come on!” said Penny, jumping up in her earnestness. A thought came to her. “How about we try it this way? We’ll both try and overcome one of our fears. We’ll both have to make an effort. You coach me and I’ll coach you. We’ll work together…like soldiers.”
“You mean ‘in solidarity’.”
“Yes like that. If anything, this will show you I’m really serious about this.”
Sheldon looked intrigued. “Well I appreciate your conviction. What are you most afraid of?”
She was stumped for a moment, her mind running over the usual things, then she remembered. “I’m scared of the dark,” she told him.
Sheldon looked blankly at her for several seconds. “The dark?” he said disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
“An absence of light? You’re afraid of darkness?”
“Yes,” said Penny wearily.
He tilted his head suspiciously. “How do you sleep at night?”
“With the windows open. There’s always some light outside. And I usually have my little lamp on at the lowest setting. Even when I sleep over at a guy’s apartment, I get him to leave a light on somewhere.” She looked away from his steady gaze a moment. “Usually they think it’s kinda sexy.”
“Well,” said Sheldon. “This is an interesting premise, but Penny, I must request one stipulation.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I will do it, if you promise that if you give up on your treatment, then I can do the same.”
“That seems fair enough.”
“Well, okay then.”
Penny gave a little whoop, pleased at her success. She advanced on Sheldon, her hand outstretched. He flinched. “Penny, am I correct in assuming that you want to seal the deal in the traditional manner?”
“Yup. It’s a non-optional social convention. Just be glad I didn’t spit on my hand first.”
Sheldon gave her a scandalized look, then gently took her hand. They shook firmly.
“We can do this,” said Penny.
When he was nine years old, he had approached Doug Arlen and his friends at a baseball game. It was a time when he was too young to know you didn’t confront the Doug Arlens of the world.
He shouted imperiously at the group of older boys standing yelling at the teams on the field. They turned and stared at him and Sheldon felt the vague tug of impending danger, but he was angry, his pale skin flushing, his long fingers tugging nervously at his khakis, the hot Houston sun beating down on his head. In his haste, he had forgotten his cap; the other boys’ squinty eyes were overshadowed by theirs.
“I want my bike back Doug Arlen,” said Sheldon.
“What’s that? You talking to me, Cooper?”
“Don’t be fa - facetious,” he said, quickly recovering from using one of his favorite new words. “I want my bike back at once.”
“Cooper’s trying to talk to me,” said Doug smiling toothily. “Look at that. Isn’t that cute?”
“You’re just fooling around,” said Sheldon in exasperation. “My bike is missing. All evidence points to you taking it. I even have eyewitnesses. Mrs. Carter saw you.” He held his head high. “I would like to give you the opportunity to return my bike before I involve the authorities.”
Doug Arlen’s smile lessened a bit, only one of his pointy canines was the most evident. “What authorities, Cooper?”
Sheldon looked at the row of boys before him with their faces cast in shadow, swallowed and stood a little taller. At least he could look eye to eye with most of them.
“The police of course,” he said clearly. “That’s who you call when you’re dealing with thieves.”
Doug raised his chin in a way which strangely reminded Sheldon of Mr. McLaren’s Doberman when Sheldon walked by on his way to the comic book store.
“Men,” said Doug. “Remember that move coach taught us at practice the other day?”
Sheldon found his eyes arrested by the shark-like stare under the baseball cap. Wolfish grins appeared on several faces.
“Let’s show Cooper how it’s done. Remember the signals?”
Sheldon didn’t hear anything after that. He went all cold, and there was a roaring in his ears. It was a classic fight and flight response, the part of his brain which never stopped working told him this. He had held his own individually with Missy and Peyton on various occasions, but fighting now was an impossibility. And in another moment flight would be impossible - though if he had had a head start on them he was sure he could outrun them.
His Dad had once told him what you did when you came face to face with a grizzly bear in the bush. Sheldon dropped to the ground, tucked his knees into his chest and threw his arms over his neck and head just before the mob piled onto him.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t hear anything for what felt like hours.
Then it seemed as if his senses began to come back. Missy was yelling as usual. She must have left the softball game. He dimly remembered seeing her at bat while he was talking to Doug. Her voice was far away then it got closer and louder.
“Get off him! You get off him! Peyton! Peyton, help!”
Suddenly the terrible weight was off him, and the sun was stabbing at his eyes. Then Missy was leaning over him.
“Shelly! Are you dead?”
“No,” Sheldon tried to say indignantly, but he couldn’t seem to get it out.
His brother, Peyton was bending over him too. “Damn it Sheldon. What did you do now?”
Mama would have told him off for swearing; besides, Sheldon knew he hadn’t done anything. He had just tried to get his bike back. He was in the right, but he couldn’t seem to get that out either.
He didn’t remember much else for a minute, then his father was there, and as he was lifting him up, Sheldon saw Doug Arlen’s pale face. He had lost his cap and had a black eye. He looked frightened too.
Sheldon smiled, but he didn’t feel too good after that. He didn’t much remember much else of anything after that until he woke up in the Houston hospital a few days later.
Penny listened to the story in shocked silence, a vision of young Sheldon defying his bullies in her mind’s eye. It hurt her heart.
“What happened?” she said as Sheldon paused.
“I had an asthma attack,” he said in a tone which implied this was obvious. “I nearly died.”
“So that’s why you’re afraid of crowds,” said Penny in an awed voice.
“Of course,” said Sheldon. “Penny, if that is the extent of your assistance, I think I will cancel right away.”
“No, Sheldon,” said Penny firmly. “You’re going to deliver that speech. You’ll be ready for it.”
Sheldon gave her his skeptical look, perfectly arched eyebrows raised, the expression which always shook her confidence a little, but for Penny that meant she had to square herself up and raise her chin. There would be no backing down.
They tried breathing exercises.
“Raj already tried this.”
“But this time, you’ll shut your hole while you do it.”
Once he stopped protesting the room was surprisingly peaceful as they breathed in and out.
Penny realized that she had not done yoga in a long time, and she enjoyed the relaxed state which settled on her muscles and in her mind.
She had told him to do the exercises for ten minutes without speaking. They opened their eyes at almost the same time, and for a moment Penny marveled at Sheldon coming from a faraway place in his mind, his lashes lowered over luminous, blue eyes.
“That’s how I want you on your big day,” she told him.
Sheldon explained in long unnecessary detail that he wanted her to spend time in the darkness, each time for longer periods until she felt she could sit in the dark without being afraid.
“No problem,” said Penny stoutly.
“I wish I had the necessary equipment in my apartment to monitor your heart rate,” he mused. “I wish Leonard was still dating Dr. Stephanie. She was so useful---”
“What for?”
“Well, I could use the equipment to ensure that your fear response was not being triggered.”
“You don’t need all that, Sheldon. I’m not one of your lab rats!”
“Well,” said Sheldon in a disappointed voice. “We’ll have to make do.”
She had to answer numerous questions - most of them unnecessary in Penny’s mind - so he could prepare his case study.
They sat in Sheldon’s apartment while he typed, and she flipped channels on the television, then Sheldon closed his laptop and looked at her intently. Penny froze.
“What?”
“You’re going to use my room for our purposes.”
“Your room? I thought no one’s supposed to be in your room?”
“Very good Penny. You remembered. Anyway I’ve decided that my room is best equipped for this. Follow me.”
She was surprised at how apprehensive she felt as she followed him down the hallway. It was evening and his room was already in darkness, especially in contrast to the living room.
She had not thought consciously of her old fear for years. Had not thought of it much even when she brought it up besides using it as a way to get leverage while trying to convince Sheldon to allow her to help him.
Now she hesitated in the hallway, but the tall physicist did not seem to notice as he reached around her, into his room and switched on the light. Penny let out a loud breath.
“You will observe that I’ve put up blackout curtains.”
“Oh.”
“Your room is never in total darkness which is why I decided to forego my usual restrictions on being in my room.”
“Oh.”
“This will serve as a sort of measurement for me as well, Penny. I will need to gauge your tolerance for darkness. Today I want you to sit in my room for as long as you feel you can stand it. You can sit on the bed. No shoes on the covers please.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t last fifteen minutes.
She walked quickly into the hallway and nearly tripped over Sheldon who was sitting cross legged in the hallway tapping at his laptop.
He pressed down on a stopwatch he had in his hand. “Well that didn’t take very long--”
“I can’t do this,” said Penny. She moved quickly around him.
“Where are you going?”
“Home! I can’t do this. I’m sorry Sheldon.”
“Penny!” he said, not loudly but in a quietly commanding voice she had heard him use before. He sounded as if he had no fear of being ignored and sure enough she found herself stopping.
“Sit down,” he said in the same voice.
Penny went back and sat down on the ground, not looking at him, biting her lips and breathing deeply. She sniffed, tears pricking her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. Was she six?
Sheldon remained opposite, regarding her thoughtfully and silently, and she felt her irritation rise.
“What Sheldon?” she snapped. “I told you I couldn’t do it, okay.”
“I heard you,” said Sheldon drily. “You seem agitated. Would you like some hot cocoa?”
“I need something stronger than that.”
“I am not sure if you want alcohol in your current state. It could further depress you.”
Screw him, she thought, but she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t in the mood for arguing.
“Penny, I am more than willing to give up this venture.”
She looked at him in some surprise. “You are?”
“Yes. I told you I was reluctant to confront my phobia. It is time consuming as well as nerve racking. If you want to give up, I will too, and we will go on with our lives.”
“Sheldon Cooper giving up on something. I thought I’d never see that happen.”
To her surprise Sheldon looked away from her. If he were anyone else, she would have thought he was being sheepish. “Well I’ve stated my reasons.”
Something in her relaxed a little. She was scared, but he was scared too.
“Well I’m not giving up Sheldon,” she said, and she was pleased to find her voice sounded almost normal.
“But you just said---”
“I know what I just said. Can I have some cocoa now please?”
He regarded her with mild exasperation and went to put the milk on to boil.
“So your way didn’t work,” Penny called to him. “I couldn’t stand it in there.”
“It’s just an absence of light. I don’t understand---”
“And I don’t understand your fear of crowds. Or at least I don’t understand it completely, but I’m trying to. Don’t start trying to make me feel stupid about it. I’m sure people have done that to you more than once about your phobias.”
He put down the cup he was holding and looked at her shrewdly for a moment. Then he said something he almost never said, “You’re absolutely right Penny. I retract my statement.”
Penny was shocked into flushing and grinning. She went on, “Your first method didn’t work. What’re you going to do now?”
Miraculously he didn’t reply right away. Sheldon Cooper didn’t start talking the moment he had an opportunity. He opened a cupboard to get the cocoa, and Penny studied his profile and realized he was thinking hard.
“I think we need to modify my current method,” he said slowly. “I found an article that should be useful. We’ll revisit this.”
Penny wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything to do with sitting in the dark again, but she felt that she had gained a point, and she resolved not to lose it in an argument. When he handed her her cocoa, she took it carefully and smiled at him as confidently as she could.
She and Sheldon kept at his exercises to reduce his anxieties. Often spending some minutes at it in the evenings before dinner.
“You sure you know what you’re getting into?” said Leonard, during one of the times he could pause to chat on his way in or out.
“This is my forte,” said Penny proudly. “You just wait. It’ll be great.”
“I don’t doubt that you know all about this stuff,” said Leonard with an amiable grin. “Just be careful wandering around in Sheldon’s head. We want you back with us when this is all over.”
“I’ll shout if I get lost.”
She and Sheldon did more breathing exercises to help him reduce his stage fright.
“I’ve been reading up on this subject,” he told her proudly. “Some people swear by focusing on a friendly face in the audience to help relieve fear.”
“I’ve heard of that one, but I really like some of the methods I’ve learned about in my class. They have a good success rate, and you can practice them. What you need is an anchor.”
“A what?”
“You need to think of something you like. Something great that happened to you. When you’re doing your speech and start to get nervous, you start to focus on the feeling again, and it will keep you from getting nervous.”
Sheldon considered this for some seconds. “I believe I’ve read something about this. You wish to use my neurological automatic system to link the sensation of speaking with a positive experience?”
“Uh….yeah.”
“What sort of experience should I use?”
“Anything. It has to be something very specific to you.”
“Like…”
“Like…the first time you fell in love?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Great sex?”
His eyes grew round.
“Sometime when you won something….” said Penny weakly.
“How about when you got that Leonard Nimoy napkin?” said Leonard who was passing by on his way to the door, pulling his messenger bag strap over his head. “That was a nerdgasm if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, of course!” squealed Penny. “That’s perfect.”
“That did leave me euphoric for several days,” said Sheldon approvingly.
“Yeah, you actually started singing in the shower,” said Leonard, looking though as if that had not been a positive experience for him.
According to her acting coach, the anchor could be triggered by doing something physical.
“A stimulus,” said Sheldon with a nod.
“When we were watching that groovy X-men movie it reminded me of it,” Penny explained. “You do a gesture that triggers your super power. In this case, you have the power not to be afraid of your audience.”
“I don’t see how that would help in saving the world,” said Sheldon discontentedly. “I would make a very poor X-man.”
“But you’d make an excellent speaker,” said Penny briskly. “Now we need you to do a gesture--”
“Can I touch my temple like Professor X or wave my hand enigmatically like Obi Wan Kenobi?”
The childlike expression that went with the question was most endearing, and Penny was loathe to deny him, but, “We need something that isn’t too obvious sweetie,” she said. “We don’t want people being distracted from anything you have to say.”
He was reluctant to give up that point, but he clearly didn’t want anyone losing out on his great speech. They settled on him squeezing his fist. He would practice doing it while he was speaking, and it would trigger his joy on finding his Leonard Nimoy napkin and his fears would be dispersed.
“Maybe I should try the same thing for my fear,” said Penny after their session. Sheldon had just finished placing their orders for the evening’s dinner.
“I suppose it would be possible to apply the theory to your situation,” he replied as he came toward her, “but I have some methods I’ve researched that I’d like to apply. After all, we don’t know for sure that your methods would work.”
“My methods have been tested by actors.”
“Who would not know the first thing about conducting a proper scientific experiment,” Sheldon said with finality. “This reminds me. When we finish dinner I will need access to your bedroom.”
“What for?”
“My research shows that creating a comforting, relaxing environment can help reduce the anxiety associated with fear of the dark. Since, we still can’t use your room, we can bring some items into my room.”
“What if I say no one’s allowed in my room?” said Penny just to see what he would say.
“I would say ‘Nonsense’. I have been in your room and slept in your bed. Also numerous men who have spent the night with you shows that you are being facetious. Are you going to get dinner now?”
“It’s not numerous men,” muttered Penny, “and you come with me. I’m not going to drive the people at the restaurant crazy with your insane orders. I’m not Leonard, and I don’t feel like being your personal assistant tonight.”
-cont'd-