bigbangbigbang fic: I am Sleeping on a Timebomb (3/3)
Title: I am Sleeping on a Timebomb
Author: muir_wolf
Artist: fujiidom
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,247
Disclaimer: BBT is not mine. No, not even this twisted, twisted version of it.
Warnings: Triggery for emotional and physical abuse as well as several mentions of a miscarriage. Also - very strong language and alcohol addiction.
Summary: AU - Circus performers in a world recovering from a devastating war in the 1980s. Penny joins the circus and meets Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, and Howard, who all have their own reasons for being there. But you can only run so far from your past, and eventually you have to start moving forward.
Pairings: Slight Leonard/Penny, Raj/Sheldon, Howard/OCs, eventually Sheldon/Penny, Raj/Howard, Leonard/Leslie (slight implications of possible future Sheldon/Penny/Wil)
Art/Mix: Here, courtesy of the brilliant fujiidom.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
-VII-
you found it in Wind. you don’t worship wind anymore
Mid-performance, Kripke slips a twenty in a man’s hand, and the man calls out, “There’s my little bitch,” - his voice low and threatening - and Sheldon Cooper’s hand slips, his aim off, his wrist unbalanced, and the shot goes wild, sliding past almost two feet from the target.
The silence in the room is unbearable, as everyone who knows him, knows his talent, stares in open-mouthed shock.
Sheldon is visibly shaking, eyes darting around the area, and he must have realized by now, his brain must have caught with his ears and he must have realized that Jesse isn’t there, but the gun is loose in his hand and pointed at the earth, his eyes wild, his chest working desperately to get enough air into his lungs.
Penny, sitting cross-legged on the platform above, still dressed from her earlier performance, grabs the bar and flings herself into space. The net is still up below her, and she can make this flip (even with no warm-up, even from moving from sitting to flying from one second to the next), and eyes dart upward at the unexpected motion.
She flips once-
twice-
catches the bar, the metal slick underneath her palms (forgot the powder, forgot the fucking powder), and she pulls herself up, balancing on one knee, hands entwining with the ropes, and she has no routine, here, no plan or thought process.
She flips herself down, letting her body swing out, her whole form moving in one fluid movement, and then she swings herself up, the pressure building along her body as she launches herself at the far bar.
She catches it and pulls herself up, fully ready to disappear into the shadows, and down below Leonard has grabbed Sheldon and pulled him away, and Howard is talking loudly with Darren, arms gesticulating as he waves at the generators in the back. Darren places a hand firmly on Howard’s chest and pushes him backwards, but Howard steps right back up, and Penny smiles a little to herself.
Raj has coaxed the mimes and clowns out, meanwhile, and they are flooding the area, doing their best to distract and annoy and amuse the audience by various measures.
She slinks down the ladder, glad for once that the spotlight has moved elsewhere, because her hands are cold and her cheeks are flushed, and what she just risked for Sheldon - her job, her reputation, by some counts her limbs, given that she needs her warm-up, has practiced her routines with her fellow kinkers - but she can feel the fine tremors run through her body, and she knows they’re not from adrenaline or fear, that they hit her as soon as Sheldon stumbled, as soon as he stuttered to a stop, gun clasped loosely in his hand, eyes wild.
She sneaks out back for the rest of the show.
And then, she thinks, as people start dispersing, groups heading back to town, then she thinks she’d better find him.
./.
(This is what had happened:
He’d hit Howard, and run, and found her, and she’d held him.
They stayed that way for a long time, and when he’d pulled back she’s brushed the damp away from his cheeks.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.
He’d never thought about the structure of a kiss, about the rise and fall of the moments before and after lips met and fell apart. He’d never considered the reasons why people kissed, or the feelings inherent in the contact, never parsed the language that exists in touch and feel alone.
He didn’t know what he was doing when he leaned in, eyes dark, but she’d known.
She’d known, and she’d lifted her chin a little, and kissed him back.
And when he’d pulled away, shocked at himself, confused at his feelings, apologies falling haphazardly from his lips, she’d forgiven him freely and let him flee.
They hadn’t spoken of it since.)
./.
Inside, she passes Kurt, who has his tongue halfway down Alicia’s throat.
The fact of the matter is that they deserve each other, so she keeps walking. Wil bumps into her, casual and accidental as always.
“Is he all right?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
./.
Darren shoves him hard, and Sheldon falls back against the side of the truck, unable to catch himself in time. His elbow cracks loudly against the metal, but Darren is again advancing, and this time his fist catches the side of Sheldon’s face. He lurches to the side, and Darren has his fingers tangled in Sheldon’s shirt before he manages to right himself.
Wil and Penny turn the corner and see them-Howard holding back a furious Leonard, Raj mute and terrified, Sheldon wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Shit,” Wil mutters underneath his breath, and then throws his jacket at Penny and takes off running.
“Hey asshole!” he yells, and Darren turns to him, enraged, but Wil pays him no mind, shoving past him to get his hands on Sheldon. “What the fuck were you doing today? Are you some fucking gilley that you screw up like that? Are you a fucking rube or what?”
Wil half-drags him into the back of the truck. “Get out!” he yells at Eric and Sam. “Get the fuck out!” They scramble out, because you don’t piss off Wil, and he slams the door shut behind them.
From outside they hear a loud crash as something is thrown into one of the walls, and a pale Leonard shoves Howard off of him. Before he can get to the door Penny and Raj are on him.
Sheldon sits on the cot, shaking, as Wil kicks the wall of the truck. “You fucking idiot!” Wil screams at the air, and Sheldon folds in on himself a little more. Wil jumps once, letting himself land loudly, and then with an air of amusement he kicks the end of one of the cots. “Teach you to fuck with me,” he growls, sparing a moment to look at Sheldon.
Sheldon is shaking, clearly terrified, clearly not even there in the moment, but Wil ignores him for now.
When Leonard throws the others off (and Howard’s still fighting him every step of the way, because this can only end badly, Howard knows these sorts of fights and knows it can only end badly), he shoves open the door and stumbles in, ignoring the last stinging smack as Howard’s fist smack against his face as he tries to claw away.
Inside the truck:
Inside the truck, Sheldon is curled in on himself on a bunk, shaking. Wil is flexing his hand, the knuckles bleeding slightly. Sheldon pulls back from Leonard as soon as Leonard comes in, and Wil shoves past, shoulder knocking deliberately against Leonard’s as he shoves through the door.
Darren is watching, eyes dark, but Wil completely ignores him as he stalks off, and Darren lets him.
Penny runs into the truck after Leonard, and slams the door shut behind her.
./.
Raj is curled in on himself outside, back to a tree, knees drawn in to his body.
He’s very close to tears, his fingers digging into his legs in an effort to hold them off. He’s succeeding, for now, but it’s an effort, and it’s not easy.
Howard has been walking for an hour, so he’s irritated when he finally sees Raj, half-blending into the night with the way he’s so still, but he swallows it down.
“Hey,” he says, crouching down next to Raj. He puts a hand on Raj’s arm, because Raj is upset and Howard is Raj’s favorite, after all (his favorite everything, his favorite friend, his favorite fuck, his favorite person, right?).
Howard is feeling a bit guilty, but the feeling is uncomfortable, and it’s not like it’s his fault, after all, it’s not like he knew what was going to happen, and he tried to help, didn’t he?
(He doesn’t like Raj being mad at him, but Raj has no right to be mad at him, no right to expect things of him, and who the fuck does he think he is?)
“Hey, are you okay?” Howard asks, giving Raj’s arm a squeeze, and Raj freaks the fuck out.
“Get off of me!” Raj yells, half-falling sideways in his rush to get away from Howard-“Get off of me, don’t touch me!”
(Howard has always been allowed to touch Raj. Raj spoke to Howard within two weeks of meeting him, and he spoke with full-sentences, hands twisting together nervously as he mentioned the fact that there was an opening in their truck because Leonard had told Kripke to get the fuck out, and that if he wanted, Howard could join them.
Leonard hadn’t been happy, but Sheldon had acquiesced because Raj had asked him, and they had made do, hadn’t they, the four of them had worked, and Raj had always touched him and talked to him and forgiven him and-
Raj was always there, Raj-)
“What’re you-” Howard asks, and he sounds breathless because he is, because he feels sucker punched, because-
“I can’t handle you right now,” Raj says, and there, the tears have finally won, wet tracks racing down his cheeks as he pulls back from Howard-Howard who looks vulnerable and angry and betrayed, but Raj can’t do this, Raj can’t do this anymore.
“Fuck, I told you I’m sorry-” Howard spits, lip curling, and Raj is shaking his head blindly-
“No,” he says, “Don’t,” he says, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Raj-” Howard says, and there’s desperation in his voice (finally), but it’s much too late for that, because Raj is on his feet and he’s walking away, and this time he’s not looking back.
./.
Leonard cleans the blood from Sheldon’s lip. Penny sits next to him, holding Sheldon’s hand tightly. Sheldon is silent.
Sheldon hasn’t spoken a word since they ran inside.
“Did he hurt you?” Leonard asks, fingers hovering above Sheldon’s body. “What did Wil do to you?”
Sheldon shakes his head. “He tried to protect me,” he says. “I don’t know why.”
-VIII-
anything that is dead shall be reborn
Leonard’s hands are shaking when he starts up the Jeep. He didn’t ask permission to use it. He shouldn’t just be taking it like this.
Sheldon is in the passenger seat, staring out the window. He hasn’t said more than a handful of words since last night, and Leonard can still feel the fear that clung to him last night when Wil went after him.
Saved him. Saved him.
That’s going to take some getting used to.
Leonard is sure he has bruises from Raj and Howard holding him back, but that’s not what concerns him, and it’s certainly not what has him borrowing one of the circus Jeeps without Darren’s permission. Sheldon’s got a split lip, but more than that, dark bruises have etched their way along his ribcage, and it was enough of an effort to get Sheldon to show them to him.
Bruised or broken, Leonard isn’t sure, but he’s not leaving this to chance, he’s going to do this right, he needs to do this right, he-
He shifts the car into drive and pulls it away from the circus, his eyes following the big top in the rear view mirror as they pull farther and farther away, and part of Leonard (a large part, a part that sometimes fills his lungs so he can’t breathe past it, can’t think past it) wants him to push the gas to the floor and gun it, to take off and leave and not come back.
Sometimes he doesn’t know what’s keeping him there.
But he can hear Sheldon breathe in and breathe out, light shallow breaths so as not to aggravate his ribs, and Leonard knows why he’s still there.
Knows why every instinct in his body is telling him to take the Jeep and take Sheldon and run. It’s such a tempting thought, to take him to safety, to take them both to some sort of safety, but Sheldon never asked to be protected, and he certainly never asked for Leonard to make decisions for him (although even now Leonard is driving him to a doctor, and Sheldon is sitting there, passive, silent, hurt).
Perhaps neither of them asked for this. Sheldon certainly didn’t.
Leonard ran away from any and all responsibilities years ago, so he doesn’t know why he’s so eager to embrace this one, why rage bubbles underneath his skin every time Darren pulls Sheldon away, and he is left to watch, helpless to interfere because it’s not his place.
But he can take him to the doctor, at the very least.
So Leonard keeps his hands on the wheel and his foot light on the gas and pulls his eyes from the rear view mirror to the road ahead.
./.
The doctor he takes Sheldon to is named Stephanie Barnett. She was in the yellow pages, she was close, and she took walk-ins. Whatever doctors are spread out here are used to limited money, and most of the country doctors aren’t equipped for any real sort of surgery for that reason, because they simply can’t afford the luxuries other doctors have in hospitals, but she greets them at the door with a smile and doesn’t ask too many questions.
She checks Sheldon’s ribs carefully. (She’s used to not using x-rays. She can tell broken bones by feel, she can diagnose the type of fracture and set it and put a cast on it flying blind, because she’s had practice, because x-rays are expensive, because she hasn’t much choice.)
She pronounces one bruised and one cracked, and bandages them carefully, and Sheldon sits, back achingly straight as she touches him (medical, sterile, still too much).
He tries not to fidget. Leonard can tell from the way his fingers are digging into the edges of the seat and the way his lips are pinched together.
She cleans his cut lip, and Sheldon keeps his eyes focused on the opposite wall as she tries gentle words and then explanations and finally silence.
She skims soft fingers along the bruises along Sheldon’s shoulder, but they’re just bruises. She gives him a bottle of Tylenol, and he nods his thanks, and as soon as possible he slips away back to the car.
Leonard is worried at the way he’s avoiding words, at the long silences and short sentences he’s balanced since the night before. Before he can follow him to the car, however, Stephanie stops him with a firm hand on his arm.
“Let me see your eye,” she says, and until then Leonard had almost forgotten about the bruise he’s sporting. For a moment he considers refusing, but Sheldon seems to want a moment to himself, and he’s grateful for the way she’d handled Sheldon, so he acquiesces, sitting down in the seat so recently abandoned by his friend.
Her touch is gentle as she probes the bruise, and something about her relaxes him, eases the bundle of nerves he carries around in his gut, tight and sometimes breathless against the world, terrified for the people he cares about.
“What are you doing working in a circus?” Stephanie asks.
Leonard slides his tongue along the back of his teeth, and blinks rapidly before he can find his voice. “I’m here because…” he stutters to a stop, shaking his head. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m just here. Will he be okay?”
She clucks softly, but nods. “He’ll be fine,” she says. “Did you two get in a fight with some of the local boys?” she asks. “They can cause trouble, but they’re not usually ones to act up like that unless there’s alcohol or a girl involved,” she says, a smile softening her words.
“No girl,” he says, “Or alcohol this time,” he adds. “Things just got a little out of hand with some of the other circus folk. Nothing too bad.”
She’s silent for a long moment, and it takes a while for him to realize that his eyes are shut and he’s leaning into her hand. Embarrassed, he straightens and moves to stand up, but she stops him, a hand on his shoulder pressing him down.
“Are you all right?” she asks, and the way she says it, level and certain and clearly wanting the truth, whatever it is, whatever it costs or matters, makes Leonard swallow back any easy lie and rethink his words.
“I just want him to be okay,” he says at last.
Stephanie’s hand is warm against his cheek. “Have you seen your eye?” she asks, trying for amused but falling much closer to concerned. “You’re acting like you failed him, but you didn’t, not with a shiner like that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Leonard says, his voice rough, and she nods, but the set of her mouth is sad, her eyes flicking away from his face, her half-smile weary.
“You don’t belong there,” she says as she turns away, peeling the gloves off of her hands, her back to Leonard.
He stares at her for a long moment and then stands as if he hadn’t heard her.
“How much do I owe you?” he asks.
He smiles back at her as he walks away, but his hands are unsteady when they fumble with the door handle.
Sheldon looks out the window the entire ride home, silent.
./.
They hadn’t shared a trunk right away, but despite himself Darren could see that Raj was good for Sheldon in those basic ways, like reminding him to eat and sleep, and however Darren felt about Sheldon, he didn’t want his main attraction getting sick or being off, so after a bit Raj moved in with Sheldon.
Sheldon, who’d been sharing the truck with Kripke (who’d hated his guts on sight and wanted him gone), and two other moderately major attractions, had felt something ease at the sight of Raj’s soft smile and quietly deliberate actions. It was Raj who’d noticed that Sheldon liked to eat at certain times, that he craved routines and rituals and a balance that had become impossibly hard to maintain in this environment, that without it Sheldon felt like he was spiraling out of control of his life, of everything.
Raj started with little things. He made sure Sheldon always sat in the seat he preferred which, given that he didn’t speak to either of the two roommates, wasn’t an easy feat. He ensured that, except for unusual circumstances, the two of them would eat at the same time each day. More than that, though, he tried to keep their friendship on an even, predictable keel.
Slowly Sheldon opened up to him. Raj could take his hand in his and squeeze it. He could work the knots out of Sheldon’s back, or brush a hand through his hair, or lay outside with him on the blanket and point out constellations.
Sheldon wasn’t quick to trust, but something about the way that Raj had to work for it forced Raj’s hand. Raj, who wandered from city to city, finally couldn’t pretend that he didn’t need anyone, that he didn’t want anyone.
Sheldon was the only one Raj spoke to. He whispered words and secrets at night as they laid side by side outside, hands clutched tightly in one another’s. And Sheldon listened-listened-like no one else had.
When Leonard came, dear, responsible Leonard, they saw him for what he was immediately. He covered for Raj when Darren was pissed that Raj wouldn’t answer, he forced Kripke to back off, he protected the both of them ruthlessly in any way he could, as if it was important, as if they mattered.
They didn’t know what to make of that. Leonard, who tried so hard to do what he thought was right.
He gave help instead of offering, which was the sort of demanding they were used to, but while they held each other’s hands, Raj learned to speak to Leonard (because he deserved it), and Sheldon learned to trust him (because he’d proved he should).
It wasn’t easy with Leonard like it was with each other, but few things are easy, and they’d both had ample cause to know that.
./.
“Darren’s gone too far this time,” Leonard says, grim.
“This time?” Penny snaps, turning on him.
“He can’t stay here,” Leonard says.
Raj is silent, arms crossed tight around himself-he hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten, can’t think clearly.
“Where’s he supposed to go?” Penny asks, edged.
“Anywhere but here-Darren’s gone over the edge, it’s not safe-”
“Nothing is safe, Leonard!” she says.
“He’s-he’s smart,” Leonard says. “He’s so smart, he could-I could-”
“What?” Wil asks. He sounds calm, but his knuckles are still raw from his fake fight last night and he looks scruffier than usual.
“I could call Beverly,” Leonard says.
They’re silent for a moment.
“Do what it takes,” Raj finally says, and there’s demand in his voice that none of them have ever heard before. “Just get him out of here.”
(Penny knows he can’t stay, but she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know where to go. She’s given up so much in her life, left so much behind, and now she’s being torn, now she’s-)
“Tell me what I need to do,” she says.
Leonard shrugs, his lips firm, his eyes helpless. Raj is looking at his feet again.
Wil looks at her appraisingly, but says nothing.
“Just get him somewhere safe,” Raj says, and he sounds broken, and maybe, Penny thinks, maybe it’s too late for all of them.
./.
Penny isn’t sure when this became so important, but she walks into the truck as if she owns it and backs Howard up against the wall. His mouth is opening and closing, as if he’s desperately trying to think of the appropriate inappropriate remark, but she shoves him back until he’s pressed against cool metal and leans in, and from the way she’s scowling Howard knows to shut up.
“You need to stop fucking with him,” she says, and she’s more than pissed, she’s furious.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Howard hisses, moving as if to stand, and she shoves him back.
“You’re a fucking ass,” she says, “I get that. But for some reason he really cares about you, so you need to clean up your act or stay away from him. My dad’s an alcoholic,” she says, and her voice has evened to an almost conversational tone, except her hand is still pressing him back against the metal, and he’s trying to avoid looking her in the eyes.
“He comes home drunk half the time, and doesn’t know where he is. My mom doesn’t want to leave him, says she owes it to him to stay, and when he’s sober enough to know better he’s too selfish to cut her free.”
“Penny,” Howard says, but he sounds more worried than angry, now, and she shoves him, hard, not even realizing that she’d started crying until a tear falls onto her bare arm.
She pushes away from him and scrubs her arm across her face, but when he reaches out to touch her she jerks away.
“Don’t,” she says, and the raw fury in her voice makes Howard step back as if scalded.
He doesn’t stop her when she turns on her heel and walks away.
./.
“Beverly,” Leonard says, voice soft, and he can hear the deep intake of breath, the astonishment coming off the other end of the line.
“Leonard?” she asks.
Before she can ask any of a hundred questions (and they’ll all be valid, won’t they? Questions like where have you been? Are you all right? Why did you run away, why didn’t you talk to me, why haven’t you called, didn’t you know I’d be worried, didn’t you care, didn’t you think, didn’t-) he clears his throat, and then starts speaking, his voice sharp and deliberate. It’s her tone, in fact, reflected back upon her, her inflections that proclaim that what is necessary must come first, and everything else can wait.
(And he knows about the waiting, it’s inscribed in his bones. “Not yet,” the career woman in the joke says, “I’ll go into labor when I’ve finished this.”
He knows that’s not what happened.
He also knows the anecdote isn’t funny at all.)
“I have a-I have a friend. He’s smart, he’s-brilliant, genius smart, and he’s here, instead, and he shouldn’t be here, he should-he needs to be-these equations that he writes, and he has no formal training, he needs to be somewhere on the West Coast, he needs the resources that you have.”
He has to give her credit-she doesn’t emphasize that this is a favor, that he needs her, doesn’t mention that he ran away, or ask him to come home.
She stays on point, firing questions at him. She wants faxes of those equations (as if there’s a fax machine within a hundred miles, as if they have things like that here, as if he didn’t leave all that behind when he left), she wants background on Sheldon, she wants Sheldon, hand delivered on a golden platter, if he’s half of what Leonard’s saying he is.
And Leonard knows what he’s saying.
At one point, this was his world, after all.
./.
“I don’t know if he should go,” Leonard says. His hands are over his face, so his voice is a little muffled, but Penny makes it out well enough. She shrugs.
“It’s his choice, isn’t it?”
“I could talk him into it,” he says. She sighs, running a hand through her hair.
“There’s going to come a point,” she says, “Where you’re going to have to realize that you’re responsible for yourself, and nothing else.”
“Penny-”
“Just because it’s easier trying to sort out Sheldon’s life than yours, doesn’t mean you can just keep running away.”
Leonard’s quiet for a minute. “I’m not running away anymore,” he says. “I have to go with him, I can’t send him off on his own.”
“Are you ready?” Penny asks, honestly worried, and Leonard shrugs, miserable.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think I have to be.”
She nods uneasily.
“Are you coming?” Leonard asks her, and she looks down.
“Yes,” she says. (She has no other choice, she has no other option, she can’t do anything else because maybe, she thinks, maybe she needs him even more than she thinks he needs her.)
./.
Wil sits next to Raj.
“Hey,” he says, bumping his shoulder gently against Raj’s.
Raj doesn’t say anything.
They sit there for a little while, quiet.
“This isn’t your fault,” Wil says.
Raj has never liked talking all that much.
./.
It rained a bit earlier, and the wet ground is starting to seep through the blanket. Penny and Sheldon don’t seem to notice the way their sides are slowly getting wet, though. Their bodies are curled against one another, his arm tucked around her, pulling her back snug against his chest, her fingers interlaced with his.
We could run away, she wants to say. Just the two of us, we could start all over.
She doesn’t say it, though. She doesn’t want to run anymore.
He doesn’t hold her like Leonard did, as if he knew she was planning on slipping away. Sheldon holds her like he’s ready to let her go whenever she wants.
It shouldn’t make her cling to him more, but it does. She wants to prove to him that she can stay, to tell him that he’s worth staying for.
I won’t leave you, she wants to tell him.
She lies on the damp blanket and holds his hand as if she’ll never let him go.
(But she would if he asked, and they both know it.)
./.
Howard sits down. No one else is in the truck, and he pulls open his trunk, letting things fall out haphazardly until he finds the case. He yanks it out and drags it over to one of the benches. Inside, he has a computer he’s half put back together-it’s something he does when he’s stressed or bored or needs distracting, but it’s sat untouched inside his truck for the better part of a month.
He pulls out pieces, resting them on the bench, his back curved sharply as he leans in on them. He blinks damp eyes, forcing himself to concentrate only on the issue at hand, but his hands won’t stop trembling. He breathes in, breathes out, and sets them down on his legs and waits. But when he tries again they’re still unsteady, and he can’t make them still, can’t force control.
He stumbles to his feet, and his pulse is loud in his ears as he grabs the glass half-filled with liquor and smashes it onto the ground. Glass scatters, liquor spilling out, and he watches it for a minute, mesmerized by the way the color dilutes against the harsh plains of the truck floor. He should clean it, he thinks-Sheldon has had enough to deal with without the mess-but his throat is closing in, and before he can stop himself he stumbles back, away from the mess.
He half-falls down against the wall until he’s sitting, the wall hard against his back. He tucks his hands in tight against his body, his legs drawn in, his face buried in his knees, and he can’t stop himself from crying, because he did this.
He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, but finally, tears still wet on his face, he stands and grabs the remaining liquor bottles from his cabinet. He opens the door and dumps them out, watching the alcohol spill into the dirt, and then he throws them into the trash. Methodically, now, still crying, he starts collecting the shards with a towel, and then finally mops up the alcohol.
He sits on the bench, legs crossed, and watches his hands shake in his lap.
“0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144… 233… 377… 610… 987… 1597… 2584… 4181… 6765… 10946… 17711…”
It helps, a little.
It’s not enough.
./.
Penny turns, ignoring the wet blanket underneath her, until she’s facing Sheldon. Their faces are close, so that she can feel the soft brush of his exhalation as he looks at her. His arm is still wrapped around her waist, and his fingers move lightly along her back, forming some sort of pattern.
“Whatever happens,” she says, “I’m going to be by your side. If you want me there.”
Sheldon tries on a crooked sort of smile, and it hurts her, the way even this happiness seems a pretence.
“Penny-” he says, and she knows, now, that she has to risk it.
“Please,” she says, blinking wet eyes. “I need you.”
The words are hard to manage, because Penny doesn’t admit to needing anyone, she doesn’t do vulnerable, but she knows that if she wants to keep Sheldon, she’s got to earn it.
Sheldon’s eyes are wide. He’s never had someone tell him they need him before. There’s responsibility inherent in the words, as well as a request.
He’s not sure what to say, what to do, except he realizes that unlike everyone else, she’s not demanding anything of him. Asking, yes, but what she wants can’t be demanded, can’t be forced. He has to give it willingly. He has to offer it freely.
He lets the idea roll in his mind for a minute. He’s been sure that she’d been on the cusp of leaving, he’d been sure that nothing he could do could make her stay. And everyone he cares about is hurt.
But if she needs him…
Maybe he could protect her, if she needed protecting.
Maybe he could take of her, like she’d always been ready to take care of him.
Except…he’d have to be able to take care of himself, first. He could be brave for her, but could be brave for himself?
“Sheldon?” she asks, and he closes his eyes, his fingers pressing lightly into her back.
He presses his lips to hers gently.
“I need you, too,” he says.
-IX-
when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire
Raj is lying on his stomach on one of the benches, one arm tucked underneath him and the other working on a sketch of Sheldon sitting in the grass, head in his hands. When Howard comes in, Raj doesn’t move, or turn and look, or even shift from his position. Howard leans against the edge of the bunks, watching him silently, watching the way Raj shifts the pencil in his hand, the way the dim light in the room shades and brightens him in turn.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, and unlike before, when his words were heated and irritated and possessive, this time Howard sounds desperate and at the end of his rope. Raj keeps sketching, silent.
“I need help,” Howard says, and the words sound half-torn out, raw and ragged over a throat desperate to close around them. Raj’s hand stills as Howard makes a choked sound, arms digging tightly around his stomach, as if he’s trying to hold himself together, keep his insides from falling out, and Raj bows his head, because he’s afraid to look at him, afraid to-to accept.
“I don’t want to be my father,” Howard says, and the anguish in those words brings Raj to his feet, and Howard buries his face against Raj’s neck, clings to him as if he’s all he has left in the world. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Raj’s throat, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, the words tumbling against each other, and Raj holds him together, holds him up, holds him close.
“I know,” he says finally. “I know you are.”
./.
When Sheldon walks in, Leonard has pulled out all of Sheldon’s books, all of his notebooks. The whiteboard with the scrawled equations is perched prominently on one of the benches. The calculator has been knocked to the floor.
The scene is so familiar to one of his past-
(Sheldon walked into the house and Jesse threw him against the wall. “What is this shit?” he’d yelled, gesturing to the books pulled from the loose floorboard, the papers pulled from underneath the mattress-“Explain what the fuck is going on!”
“I-” Sheldon had said, floundering for words, and Jesse had knocked him to the floor.
Later, after he was done with his talk, he’d hauled it all out to the back and lit it on fire. Sheldon had watched from the attic window where Jesse had left him, fingers to the glass as everything he wanted went up in flames.)
-The scene is so familiar that Sheldon stumbles against the nearest set of bunks, eyes wide, air caught in his lungs.
“Sheldon!” Leonard calls out, hurrying to his side, and Sheldon shakes his head, dizzy with fear, and half-collapses to his knees.
“Please-” he whispers, “Please-”
“It’s all right,” Leonard says, a hand on his arm. “It’s all right.”
It takes a long explanation, as Leonard swallows back helpless guilt at Sheldon’s reaction.
“Beverly says you’ll have a place at one of the University’s,” he tells him. “You’ll be out of here, away from Darren, away from Kripke, and you’ll be able to do what you like doing.”
(Leonard doesn’t know what makes Sheldon pause. He doesn’t recognize the fear for what it is-fear of failure, of change, or responsibility, of risk-despite the fact that those fears have so often belonged to him.
Leonard doesn’t realize that Sheldon has been afraid of what he loves for so long that even the thought of pursuing it is terrifying.)
“You won’t be alone,” Leonard says. “I’ll go with you, and the others probably will, too. We’ll be there for you.”
(Leonard doesn’t realize that Sheldon has brought down everyone he cares about, that he’s dangerous, that the risk with them there can only be greater.)
“You deserve to be happy,” Leonard says. “You deserve more than this.”
(And Sheldon knows he doesn’t, knows he can’t, knows he-)
“It’s only logical,” Leonard says, breathless, terrified, “It’s only logical that you work in a field where you can offer something to the world beyond entertainment.”
(Leonard thinks he’s being harsh. Leonard thinks it’s too much, but he doesn’t know what else to say.
Sheldon is thinking of George, who wanted to cast him in his own image. Sheldon is thinking of Jesse, who wanted to make him into something he’s not. Sheldon can’t think of himself, not yet, nor can he think of Leonard, or Penny, or Raj, or Howard.
But the world. Academia. Science. Sheldon can think about them.
Sheldon can think about what he owes them, if not what he owes himself. He can think about what they deserve, if not what he deserves.)
“Darren won’t let me,” he says, because it’s true, because it’s maybe his last escape from change, even if it’s for the better, even if it’s necessary.
Leonard shakes his head. “I’ll take care of that.”
./.
Raj is sitting cross-legged outside in the parched grass when Penny finds him. She stands behind him, letting him lean back against her legs as she plays with his hair and watches the circus once more curl open like a flower, petal by petal pulling back and becoming whole.
“He said he’ll get help,” Raj says, and there’s doubt in his voice but Penny knows enough to let it pass.
“Okay,” she says instead, and Raj’s hand curls along her ankle as he leans back into her and tilts his head up until he can see her face.
“I have to see if he will,” he says, and Penny smiles, a little hopeful, a little sad.
“We’ll be there,” she says. “Either way, whatever happens, you’re not alone.”
He frowns a little, as if the concept is new, as if all these years later he hasn’t realized how far he’s come, how he’s no longer trapped and desperate in a prison of blood and obligation. He blinks against a sudden well of tears he wasn’t expecting, and tries on a smile for her sake.
“He can’t stay here,” he says, changing the subject, and her face falls a little, clouded by what’s hovering over all of them. She glances up at the blue sky above them, her blonde hair spilling back at the movement, her lips pressed tightly together.
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and if Raj had ever had any doubts he knows, now, that she’s not leaving Sheldon. He nods, because he’s not jealous that Sheldon has found someone else to trust, and he’s not worried about being alone, because he’s leaned himself back against her without a second thought, sure that she’d be there.
She’s right, he realizes.
He squeezes her ankle gently and then stands up, stretching a little along the way.
“I need to find Howard,” he says. “I’m not going to let him change his mind.”
./.
Leonard approaches Darren with as little fear as he can manage, sure that, like an animal, Darren would be able to smell it, and would be merciless upon finding it.
“I want Sheldon out of his contract,” he says, forgoing any even vague pretence of small talk.
Darren smiles, except it’s slow and cruel and entirely too amused.
“Do you, now?” he says. Leonard very carefully does not ball his hand into a fist.
“He signed the contract under duress, as you well know, and it won’t do any good for this circus to have its reputation dragged through the mud,” he says. His words are clipped, his West Coast accent (or lack thereof) sounding over pronounced in the enclosed space of Darren’s truck.
Darren leans back a little in his chair, letting his eyes draw along Leonard. When he glances away, the lift of his lips declare exactly what he thinks of him, and the opinion is clearly not a high one.
“You really shouldn’t pick battles you can’t win,” he says.
Leonard-Leonard may have had a nervous breakdown, and he may have run away from everyone he knew and wandered aimlessly, and he may have somehow found his way into working in a circus, but here’s the thing:
Leonard, for everything he ever has been or is, has never stopped being Beverly’s son.
“Important people want him,” he says, and he can feel the sharp edge of his voice, and it sounds like his mother’s when she’s arguing with people who don’t want to cough up money for important research. “I can drown you in court fees until you’re begging me to destroy the contract. However you want to play this, Sheldon is coming with me.”
“Look at the little boy, trying to play with the sharks,” Darren sneers. Leonard’s face flickers to stone, his hands clenched at his side.
“He’s coming with me,” he says, and pulls away.
./.
Leslie Winkle shows up at the show that night. She’s got a backpack of clothes and whatever else, and her hair’s tied back tightly. Her nose keeps wrinkling a little as she looks around the place, but she doesn’t make any comments, and no one quite manages to stop her when she walks around back after the show.
“Hey,” she says when she comes across Leonard. He’s got his back to her, but he straightens slowly and turns toward her, because he recognizes that pitch, that tone.
“What‘re you doing here?” he asks, and she shrugs, tugging the bottom of her shirt almost nervously, except he knows Leslie doesn’t do nervous, especially not with Leonard. He wipes his hands on his plaid shirt, and then glances down at himself, amused, seeing himself as she must be seeing him.
They haven’t seen each other since before he ran off from school. They’d been competitors of a sort. Friends, too, in their own way. They’d been each other’s first kiss. She’d slapped him when she had felt it was necessary. They’d worked on projects together, tested each other, tried to one-up each other.
“Your mom told me where you were,” she says. “I was due for a vacation, and I was curious about this supposed genius.”
“He is a genius,” Leonard says, his words a bit too quick, his tone a tad too sharp. She pauses, surprised, and he shrugs, uncomfortable. “He is,” he repeats.
“I also wanted to make sure you were coming back, too,” she says, her voice a little softer. “However much of a genius your friend is, it wouldn’t hurt our research department if we were to add another Dr. Hofstadter to the team.”
Leonard stares at her in open-mouthed shock for almost a full minute.
“Did you just compliment me?” he asks, clearly disbelieving, and she grins.
“It’s not going to happen often,” she says. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“You’ve never complimented me,” he says. She shrugs and then crosses her arms, rocks back on her heels.
“You should’ve said goodbye,” she says. Leonard is quiet for a moment.
“I know.”
“I was worried,” she admits.
Again, Leonard is struck speechless. Leslie Winkle isn’t the sort to be worried, especially not about him, especially not…
“Worried?” he asks. She nods.
“Are you coming back?” she asks.
He is, of course. He’s not about to throw Sheldon into that shark tank alone. But, for the first time, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, going back won’t be such a terrible thing.
“Yes,” he says, and the word sounds like relief even to him, and when Leslie smiles it’s one of the most perfect things he’s ever seen.
./.
There is a scene, in one of the final episodes, where Picard is looking out of one of the view screens, hands clasped behind his back, back bowed as if by some extraordinary weight. A final battle is fast approaching, and he knows there is no trick he can pull, no clever stunt to escape, that they must stand fast in this fight, and that they might not survive.
He was never meant to captain a warship-it was a twist of fate, that the first stirrings of war occurred when they did, that events played out as they had, and he has often felt unprepared for the weight of such a command, of the loss that comes from such circumstances.
He says nothing, as he looks out the window, but his lips are pinched, dark circles underneath his eyes. The camera pans slowly around him, taking him in, and he has aged in some impossible way and yet remains the exact mirror image of the man who walked onto the bridge a mere four years ago.
There is no gaudy background music to force emotion. It is only the image of a man facing down an impossible future, and readying himself for what is to come.
The scene runs less than a minute and a half, but essays have been written on it. This is the face of duty, they write, this is how you look when you have nothing left to lose.
Years afterwards, in an interview, Patrick Stewart had shaken his head contemplatively. “It’s funny,” he said, “I always thought that that scene was about hope, not despair.”
./.
This is how it goes:
Everyone’s waiting. They’re not exactly sure what they’re waiting for. Maybe there’s something in the air. Maybe they just don’t know what to do next. Leonard’s considering calling up Beverly for legal counsel. Leslie’s trying to figure out where she’s going to stay. Penny is nearing the end of her rope, and Raj doesn’t have much farther to fall.
Sheldon, though, chooses not to endlessly debate the matter.
(Sheldon doesn’t like risk. He doesn’t like chance. He’s afraid, and he can feel that fear cling to him-coat itself inside his throat, tremble along his nerves, tie itself until it restricts his heart.
He doesn’t like risk, but he doesn’t like fear, either, and he’s had enough of being afraid, had enough of backing away.
He wants to be brave. For her, for his friends, for the world, for everyone and anything.
For himself. Because they said he deserves it, and maybe-just maybe-they’re right.)
The next show, Darren announces him, and Sheldon rides out on horseback.
He doesn’t hit one target.
Each shot is wide, each knife is wide, each stunt fails miserably.
The audience are on their feet booing.
Penny, watching from above as usual, is tying herself up in knots, unsure of what to do. (“Trust me,” Sheldon had said earlier, before the show. “Just trust me.”)
Darren loses it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yells, coming out into the middle of the ring, and Darren’s usually the consummate professional during the show but this is simply too much. If it was anyone else he might have let it go until afterwards, but not Sheldon-never Sheldon.
Sheldon’s already done with the horseback portion of his act, so he’s standing, knife in hand, guns in holsters, when Darren comes out.
Darren, who’s forgetting that he’s still miked.
“You want me send you back to your uncle and have him beat some shit into, you little fucker?” Darren hisses, getting in nice and close to Sheldon. “You want me to drag you back to my bunk and take what you’re always offering, you little fucking slut, is that what you fucking want? Is it?”
Darren’s hand is tangled in Sheldon’s shirt collar as he forces him backwards until he’s pinned against one of the poles.
“I will fucking beat you until you can’t walk for this little stunt, and you know I will, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again you little shit, and don’t think your friends can protect you this time, I’ll tell Jesse you’re here and deliver you to him tied up and crying those pretty little tears of yours.”
Sheldon is crying, but he’s smiling fiercely through his tears.
“I don’t need my friends to protect me, you fuck,” he says, his voice hoarse, and then he pulls a gun from his holster and presses it up underneath Darren’s chin.
(Darren always said he’d never seen no one draw a gun as fast as Sheldon could.)
“Smile,” Sheldon whispers, and his hand trembles but it’s steady enough that Darren doesn’t dare move. He knows how good Sheldon is. How beautifully perfect a shot Sheldon is.
“You won’t do it,” Darren says, but his voice shakes with real fear, because he knows he’s pushed Sheldon too far.
“I could,” Sheldon says. “All that matters is that I could pull this trigger.”
And then Darren says it, because Sheldon’s eyes dark, and his lip is curling, Darren says “Please.”
Sheldon looks at him a minute longer, and then pulls the gun back and slams it roughly into his holster. “I want out of my contract,” he says, and pulls away.
Sheldon’s about fifteen feet away when Darren throws himself against Sheldon’s unprotected back, knocking the knife away and sending it skittering across the ground. Sheldon goes for the guns but Darren’s pins his hands above him, and it’s clear that he’s forgotten the audience now, completely caught up in the moment.
He’s furious and blinded by rage, and has no idea four people are already running towards him.
Leonard hits Darren, and the feel of his fist against Darren’s flesh has been a long time coming, and it hurts like a bitch, but for the first time in his life Leonard feels like he’s making a stand, and it feels better than he ever knew it could be.
Howard and Raj and Penny pull Darren off Sheldon, and then Leonard off Darren, and Leslie’s there now, trying to talk Leonard down.
“Stay away from my friend!” Raj screams at Darren, and the sound carries through the area, and he stumbles back a bit when he realizes what he just did, but Howard’s there to catch him.
Darren gets off the ground, slowly, feeling the shocked gaze of everyone there.
“I’m sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was an unfortunate spectacle for you to have to see, but-”
The rest of his words are drowned out by booing.
“Out of my contract,” Sheldon says, and then the six of them walk out, together.
-X-
don’t forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries.
Yes
“I didn’t-” Kripke sounds breathless as he steps in front of Sheldon-“You have to undewstand, I didn’t know. He said-Dawwen said you’d scwewed some guys wife, that some husband was after you, that-I didn’t know.”
Leonard and Penny both start to take a step closer, but Leslie has suddenly pushed her way next to Sheldon, her stance proprietary. “And you are?”
“I’m-” Kripke takes a moment to blink at her before shrugging it away and grabbing Sheldon’s arm, pulling him forward with a firm tug. The shock of it takes them all by surprise-that he’d just grabbed Sheldon, that-
“I neveh woohd’ve-”
Leslie grabs Kripke’s ear and yanks. Hard. “Get your hands off my scientist,” she hisses, thoroughly pissed off. “He doesn’t like to be touched.”
Kripke lets go of Sheldon as if he’d just spontaneously combusted (except not really, of course, fucking pyro that he is). Leonard gently eases Leslie away from Kripke while Penny loops an arm through Sheldon’s.
“Leslie, I appreciate the concern, but I’m all right,” Sheldon says, his free hand gently straightening his shirt.
“I-I neveh-Coopeh-” Kripke says, and there’s real remorse in his eyes, but Sheldon shakes his head.
“I don’t need your apologies,” he says, his voice soft. “You simply aren’t worth it, Kripke.”
./.
Wil slips a number into Howard’s pocket.
“Oh!” Howard says, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m kinda with Raj now, I can’t-”
“It’s a rehab facility,” Wil says, cutting him off. “Just something to think about.”’
Howard is silent, but just when Wil thinks he’s gone and insulted him, Howard nods. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”
./.
“Hey,” Leslie says, bumping into Leonard’s arm. “Sorry about the-ah-incident.”
Leonard shakes his head, amused. “Kripke had it coming,” he says.
She nods, thoughtfully.
“I was thinking about buying some horses,” she says, changing the subject. “But I don’t know if I could take care of them on my own.”
Leonard looks at her for a long moment, until she can’t quite hide the smile that’s threatening to spill out onto her lips.
“Just something to think about,” she says. “It’s a big house, you wouldn’t even need to see me if you didn’t want to.”
“You haven’t seen me for years,” Leonard says with a frown. She shrugs.
“I tend to know what I want,” she says.
They keep walking, the both of them silent. Finally, Leonard glances at Leslie.
“What if I wanted to see you?” he asks.
She grins.
“I’m sure we can figure something out.”
./.
Wil finds Penny outside. His fingers curl around her wrist as he pulls her away from the others, and he brushes her hair back behind her ear with a smile.
“I made some calls,” he says. “We could all do with a face like that, a heart like that,” he says, and she frowns at him, confused, because clearly he’s babbling and after everything that’s happened-
“Leonard got Sheldon a place at one of the Uni’s, right?” Wil asks, and she nods slowly.
“His mother called, and he’s got a position with Dr. Gablehauser,” she says. “We’re leaving-well, we’re leaving as soon as we can,” she says. Wil smirks a little as he chucks her underneath the chin.
“I still have a few contacts,” he says. “I made some calls and set up some interviews. I can’t promise you anything for sure, of course,” he says. “But you’ll get the auditions, and with a smile like that you’ll get something. You’ve got the talent.”
“You set up…auditions…?” she asks, still confused, and now the smile edging around his lips is entirely too close to laughter for her liking.
“It may have been a while since Star Trek: Last Stand, but it’s not something that people tend to forget,” he says, a little grin tugging at his lips. Her mouth drops open in a slight ‘o’ of surprise, and he laughs, clearly delighted. “Ensign Crusher, at your service,” he says, dropping her a little salute. “Killed in the Battle of Traxis, never to be seen again.” He waves a finger admonishingly. “Understand that he’s been resurrected solely for you, and it’s a secret I rather hope you’ll keep.”
“You have to tell Sheldon,” she says, still wide-eyed, and his eyebrow quirks up as he looks at her.
“He has an eidetic memory,” he says. “That’s not a secret I ever could have kept from him.”
./.
Under the big top, a growing chorus of voices draws them in.
Darren is surrounded by a group of people-a large group of people. None of them are happy.
“You fucking coward,” someone shouts, and several people call out agreement.
“Think you can fuck with people just because you’re the ringmaster?” someone else yells, and the people press in closer. From out of the center, a familiar face appears, walking forward with purpose and anger spread equally across his face.
“Is this how you wun a ciwcus?” Kripke asks, gesturing at the people grouped behind him. “You awen’t one of us anymowe,” he says.
“You aren’t one of us anymore,” the others repeat. Darren shakes his head, stumbling back a step, but Kripke follows him.
“Get out,” he says. “This is ouw ciwcus now. You don’t bewong hewe.”
“You don’t belong here.”
Darren is pale as he falls back another step and finds himself pinned against a fence.
“You’we going to weave, and neveh come back,” Kripke says, and Darren-
Darren is looking at the people gathered around him, clearly pissed off. To the side he sees Wil, but Wil is leaning back against a truck and brushing his nails against his shirt. When he sees Darren looking at him, desperate, he grins slowly, quite self-satisfied, and Darren mutters a strangled epithet.
“You undewstand?” Kripke asks, forcing himself ever closer into Darren’s space, and Darren has no choice, no choice at all.
“You’ll pay for this,” he hisses, and Krikpe just grins.
“You’we out,” he says.
And Darren says nothing, because he knows he is.
./.
Penny, being Penny, sizes up the boy’s truck. “We’ll be short two bunks,” she says. She shrugs. It’s a couple of beds, after all. “We’ll make do.”
Kripke knows enough by now that he makes no comment when she slides by him and reaches her hand down into Darren’s inside pocket. When she grabs the key she flips it deliberately in her fingers so that the metal catches the light and shines for a moment in front of Darren’s eyes.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing this,” she says.
He stays silent. Probably for the best.
It only takes her a moment to grab her belongings from her trunk and shove them into a bag. She moves to swing it over her shoulder, but Sheldon stops her with a hand on her arm. His lip is still bleeding, and without even thinking she wipes the blood off of his chin with her thumb.
He stands there, lets her, his eyes on hers.
“Penny,” he says. His voice is soft, and when he moves to take the bag she lets him. To him, at least, she has nothing to prove.
Outside, the circus has fallen silent.
Most everyone is outside, watching them, waiting to see what they’ll do next. Sheldon puts her bag in the back of the truck, his back too straight, clearly uncomfortable with the weight of everyone’s eyes, but she’s not exactly thrilled with it, either.
“Well,” she says. Kripke moves to step forward, but she glares at him until he backs down.
Leonard stirs over to the side. “This is awkward,” he mutters, and Leslie rolls her eyes.
“Let’s just go,” she says, and Penny smiles reluctantly before shrugging. Wil steps out from the side and nods briefly to Leonard before walking closer to the two of them.
Wil grabs Sheldon firmly, and dips him, despite Sheldon’s outraged yelp. Before Sheldon can get anything else out, Wil’s mouth is on Sheldon’s, his tongue sliding between Sheldon’s lips, and Sheldon, taken completely by surprise, is frozen for a moment. He tentatively starts kissing back, and Wil makes a noise of intense interest as he explores the entirety of Sheldon’s mouth, and then, with a last kiss, he pulls him back up to a standing position.
Sheldon is still blinking when Wil runs the pad of his thumb over Penny’s lips and then kisses her softly.
Leonard and Leslie and Howard and Raj have already climbed into the back of the truck. They’ve said their goodbyes and there’s nothing holding them here anymore, but Penny’s wavers, her hand pressed against Wil’s shirt, Sheldon to her side.
“I don’t like goodbyes,” Sheldon says, voice rough, and his hand tangles with hers and he steps back. Penny climbs up into the driver’s seat as Sheldon walks around, and when the door shuts, Wil throws her a salute.
“Leave the porch light on,” he says, amused. “I’ll be out to see you sooner or later.”
Penny grins down at him and then pulls out her hair tie, shaking her hair out and letting it fall down around her shoulders.
“Promises, promises,” she calls out, and he winks at her.
Sheldon huffs as he leans over her and looks down at Wil. “I believe she’s insinuating you’re not a man of your word,” he says.
Wil smirks. “Ensign Crusher is always a man of his word,” he says. “ ‘If there is no honor in battle-’ ”
“ ‘-then why would we fight?’” Sheldon finishes. They stare at each other for a long moment, and then with a slam Leonard opens the sliding door to the back of the truck.
“Hey,” he says, “Are we getting out of here or what?”
Wil slams his hand twice against the door of the truck. “Don’t let him fuck everything up,” he says, and Penny nods, and laughs, and then revs the engine as Wil steps back.
“You flirt, you,” she says, and then pushes down on the gas.
Leonard and Leslie are bickering in the back, and Howard and Raj are playing cards, and Sheldon is sitting next to Penny, a notepad open on his lap, a pen held loosely in his hand.
Without looking, without thinking, she reaches out her hand and places it near his. He glances up at her and then takes it in his own, his palm warm against hers, his long fingers intertwining with hers.
Beside them, fields stretch towards the horizon; in front of them is a road that spills out forever.
They don’t look back.
finis
AN: My love and thanks to all of you ♥
./.
Author: muir_wolf
Artist: fujiidom
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,247
Disclaimer: BBT is not mine. No, not even this twisted, twisted version of it.
Warnings: Triggery for emotional and physical abuse as well as several mentions of a miscarriage. Also - very strong language and alcohol addiction.
Summary: AU - Circus performers in a world recovering from a devastating war in the 1980s. Penny joins the circus and meets Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, and Howard, who all have their own reasons for being there. But you can only run so far from your past, and eventually you have to start moving forward.
Pairings: Slight Leonard/Penny, Raj/Sheldon, Howard/OCs, eventually Sheldon/Penny, Raj/Howard, Leonard/Leslie (slight implications of possible future Sheldon/Penny/Wil)
Art/Mix: Here, courtesy of the brilliant fujiidom.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
-VII-
you found it in Wind. you don’t worship wind anymore
Mid-performance, Kripke slips a twenty in a man’s hand, and the man calls out, “There’s my little bitch,” - his voice low and threatening - and Sheldon Cooper’s hand slips, his aim off, his wrist unbalanced, and the shot goes wild, sliding past almost two feet from the target.
The silence in the room is unbearable, as everyone who knows him, knows his talent, stares in open-mouthed shock.
Sheldon is visibly shaking, eyes darting around the area, and he must have realized by now, his brain must have caught with his ears and he must have realized that Jesse isn’t there, but the gun is loose in his hand and pointed at the earth, his eyes wild, his chest working desperately to get enough air into his lungs.
Penny, sitting cross-legged on the platform above, still dressed from her earlier performance, grabs the bar and flings herself into space. The net is still up below her, and she can make this flip (even with no warm-up, even from moving from sitting to flying from one second to the next), and eyes dart upward at the unexpected motion.
She flips once-
twice-
catches the bar, the metal slick underneath her palms (forgot the powder, forgot the fucking powder), and she pulls herself up, balancing on one knee, hands entwining with the ropes, and she has no routine, here, no plan or thought process.
She flips herself down, letting her body swing out, her whole form moving in one fluid movement, and then she swings herself up, the pressure building along her body as she launches herself at the far bar.
She catches it and pulls herself up, fully ready to disappear into the shadows, and down below Leonard has grabbed Sheldon and pulled him away, and Howard is talking loudly with Darren, arms gesticulating as he waves at the generators in the back. Darren places a hand firmly on Howard’s chest and pushes him backwards, but Howard steps right back up, and Penny smiles a little to herself.
Raj has coaxed the mimes and clowns out, meanwhile, and they are flooding the area, doing their best to distract and annoy and amuse the audience by various measures.
She slinks down the ladder, glad for once that the spotlight has moved elsewhere, because her hands are cold and her cheeks are flushed, and what she just risked for Sheldon - her job, her reputation, by some counts her limbs, given that she needs her warm-up, has practiced her routines with her fellow kinkers - but she can feel the fine tremors run through her body, and she knows they’re not from adrenaline or fear, that they hit her as soon as Sheldon stumbled, as soon as he stuttered to a stop, gun clasped loosely in his hand, eyes wild.
She sneaks out back for the rest of the show.
And then, she thinks, as people start dispersing, groups heading back to town, then she thinks she’d better find him.
./.
(This is what had happened:
He’d hit Howard, and run, and found her, and she’d held him.
They stayed that way for a long time, and when he’d pulled back she’s brushed the damp away from his cheeks.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her.
He’d never thought about the structure of a kiss, about the rise and fall of the moments before and after lips met and fell apart. He’d never considered the reasons why people kissed, or the feelings inherent in the contact, never parsed the language that exists in touch and feel alone.
He didn’t know what he was doing when he leaned in, eyes dark, but she’d known.
She’d known, and she’d lifted her chin a little, and kissed him back.
And when he’d pulled away, shocked at himself, confused at his feelings, apologies falling haphazardly from his lips, she’d forgiven him freely and let him flee.
They hadn’t spoken of it since.)
./.
Inside, she passes Kurt, who has his tongue halfway down Alicia’s throat.
The fact of the matter is that they deserve each other, so she keeps walking. Wil bumps into her, casual and accidental as always.
“Is he all right?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
./.
Darren shoves him hard, and Sheldon falls back against the side of the truck, unable to catch himself in time. His elbow cracks loudly against the metal, but Darren is again advancing, and this time his fist catches the side of Sheldon’s face. He lurches to the side, and Darren has his fingers tangled in Sheldon’s shirt before he manages to right himself.
Wil and Penny turn the corner and see them-Howard holding back a furious Leonard, Raj mute and terrified, Sheldon wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Shit,” Wil mutters underneath his breath, and then throws his jacket at Penny and takes off running.
“Hey asshole!” he yells, and Darren turns to him, enraged, but Wil pays him no mind, shoving past him to get his hands on Sheldon. “What the fuck were you doing today? Are you some fucking gilley that you screw up like that? Are you a fucking rube or what?”
Wil half-drags him into the back of the truck. “Get out!” he yells at Eric and Sam. “Get the fuck out!” They scramble out, because you don’t piss off Wil, and he slams the door shut behind them.
From outside they hear a loud crash as something is thrown into one of the walls, and a pale Leonard shoves Howard off of him. Before he can get to the door Penny and Raj are on him.
Sheldon sits on the cot, shaking, as Wil kicks the wall of the truck. “You fucking idiot!” Wil screams at the air, and Sheldon folds in on himself a little more. Wil jumps once, letting himself land loudly, and then with an air of amusement he kicks the end of one of the cots. “Teach you to fuck with me,” he growls, sparing a moment to look at Sheldon.
Sheldon is shaking, clearly terrified, clearly not even there in the moment, but Wil ignores him for now.
When Leonard throws the others off (and Howard’s still fighting him every step of the way, because this can only end badly, Howard knows these sorts of fights and knows it can only end badly), he shoves open the door and stumbles in, ignoring the last stinging smack as Howard’s fist smack against his face as he tries to claw away.
Inside the truck:
Inside the truck, Sheldon is curled in on himself on a bunk, shaking. Wil is flexing his hand, the knuckles bleeding slightly. Sheldon pulls back from Leonard as soon as Leonard comes in, and Wil shoves past, shoulder knocking deliberately against Leonard’s as he shoves through the door.
Darren is watching, eyes dark, but Wil completely ignores him as he stalks off, and Darren lets him.
Penny runs into the truck after Leonard, and slams the door shut behind her.
./.
Raj is curled in on himself outside, back to a tree, knees drawn in to his body.
He’s very close to tears, his fingers digging into his legs in an effort to hold them off. He’s succeeding, for now, but it’s an effort, and it’s not easy.
Howard has been walking for an hour, so he’s irritated when he finally sees Raj, half-blending into the night with the way he’s so still, but he swallows it down.
“Hey,” he says, crouching down next to Raj. He puts a hand on Raj’s arm, because Raj is upset and Howard is Raj’s favorite, after all (his favorite everything, his favorite friend, his favorite fuck, his favorite person, right?).
Howard is feeling a bit guilty, but the feeling is uncomfortable, and it’s not like it’s his fault, after all, it’s not like he knew what was going to happen, and he tried to help, didn’t he?
(He doesn’t like Raj being mad at him, but Raj has no right to be mad at him, no right to expect things of him, and who the fuck does he think he is?)
“Hey, are you okay?” Howard asks, giving Raj’s arm a squeeze, and Raj freaks the fuck out.
“Get off of me!” Raj yells, half-falling sideways in his rush to get away from Howard-“Get off of me, don’t touch me!”
(Howard has always been allowed to touch Raj. Raj spoke to Howard within two weeks of meeting him, and he spoke with full-sentences, hands twisting together nervously as he mentioned the fact that there was an opening in their truck because Leonard had told Kripke to get the fuck out, and that if he wanted, Howard could join them.
Leonard hadn’t been happy, but Sheldon had acquiesced because Raj had asked him, and they had made do, hadn’t they, the four of them had worked, and Raj had always touched him and talked to him and forgiven him and-
Raj was always there, Raj-)
“What’re you-” Howard asks, and he sounds breathless because he is, because he feels sucker punched, because-
“I can’t handle you right now,” Raj says, and there, the tears have finally won, wet tracks racing down his cheeks as he pulls back from Howard-Howard who looks vulnerable and angry and betrayed, but Raj can’t do this, Raj can’t do this anymore.
“Fuck, I told you I’m sorry-” Howard spits, lip curling, and Raj is shaking his head blindly-
“No,” he says, “Don’t,” he says, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Raj-” Howard says, and there’s desperation in his voice (finally), but it’s much too late for that, because Raj is on his feet and he’s walking away, and this time he’s not looking back.
./.
Leonard cleans the blood from Sheldon’s lip. Penny sits next to him, holding Sheldon’s hand tightly. Sheldon is silent.
Sheldon hasn’t spoken a word since they ran inside.
“Did he hurt you?” Leonard asks, fingers hovering above Sheldon’s body. “What did Wil do to you?”
Sheldon shakes his head. “He tried to protect me,” he says. “I don’t know why.”
-VIII-
anything that is dead shall be reborn
Leonard’s hands are shaking when he starts up the Jeep. He didn’t ask permission to use it. He shouldn’t just be taking it like this.
Sheldon is in the passenger seat, staring out the window. He hasn’t said more than a handful of words since last night, and Leonard can still feel the fear that clung to him last night when Wil went after him.
Saved him. Saved him.
That’s going to take some getting used to.
Leonard is sure he has bruises from Raj and Howard holding him back, but that’s not what concerns him, and it’s certainly not what has him borrowing one of the circus Jeeps without Darren’s permission. Sheldon’s got a split lip, but more than that, dark bruises have etched their way along his ribcage, and it was enough of an effort to get Sheldon to show them to him.
Bruised or broken, Leonard isn’t sure, but he’s not leaving this to chance, he’s going to do this right, he needs to do this right, he-
He shifts the car into drive and pulls it away from the circus, his eyes following the big top in the rear view mirror as they pull farther and farther away, and part of Leonard (a large part, a part that sometimes fills his lungs so he can’t breathe past it, can’t think past it) wants him to push the gas to the floor and gun it, to take off and leave and not come back.
Sometimes he doesn’t know what’s keeping him there.
But he can hear Sheldon breathe in and breathe out, light shallow breaths so as not to aggravate his ribs, and Leonard knows why he’s still there.
Knows why every instinct in his body is telling him to take the Jeep and take Sheldon and run. It’s such a tempting thought, to take him to safety, to take them both to some sort of safety, but Sheldon never asked to be protected, and he certainly never asked for Leonard to make decisions for him (although even now Leonard is driving him to a doctor, and Sheldon is sitting there, passive, silent, hurt).
Perhaps neither of them asked for this. Sheldon certainly didn’t.
Leonard ran away from any and all responsibilities years ago, so he doesn’t know why he’s so eager to embrace this one, why rage bubbles underneath his skin every time Darren pulls Sheldon away, and he is left to watch, helpless to interfere because it’s not his place.
But he can take him to the doctor, at the very least.
So Leonard keeps his hands on the wheel and his foot light on the gas and pulls his eyes from the rear view mirror to the road ahead.
./.
The doctor he takes Sheldon to is named Stephanie Barnett. She was in the yellow pages, she was close, and she took walk-ins. Whatever doctors are spread out here are used to limited money, and most of the country doctors aren’t equipped for any real sort of surgery for that reason, because they simply can’t afford the luxuries other doctors have in hospitals, but she greets them at the door with a smile and doesn’t ask too many questions.
She checks Sheldon’s ribs carefully. (She’s used to not using x-rays. She can tell broken bones by feel, she can diagnose the type of fracture and set it and put a cast on it flying blind, because she’s had practice, because x-rays are expensive, because she hasn’t much choice.)
She pronounces one bruised and one cracked, and bandages them carefully, and Sheldon sits, back achingly straight as she touches him (medical, sterile, still too much).
He tries not to fidget. Leonard can tell from the way his fingers are digging into the edges of the seat and the way his lips are pinched together.
She cleans his cut lip, and Sheldon keeps his eyes focused on the opposite wall as she tries gentle words and then explanations and finally silence.
She skims soft fingers along the bruises along Sheldon’s shoulder, but they’re just bruises. She gives him a bottle of Tylenol, and he nods his thanks, and as soon as possible he slips away back to the car.
Leonard is worried at the way he’s avoiding words, at the long silences and short sentences he’s balanced since the night before. Before he can follow him to the car, however, Stephanie stops him with a firm hand on his arm.
“Let me see your eye,” she says, and until then Leonard had almost forgotten about the bruise he’s sporting. For a moment he considers refusing, but Sheldon seems to want a moment to himself, and he’s grateful for the way she’d handled Sheldon, so he acquiesces, sitting down in the seat so recently abandoned by his friend.
Her touch is gentle as she probes the bruise, and something about her relaxes him, eases the bundle of nerves he carries around in his gut, tight and sometimes breathless against the world, terrified for the people he cares about.
“What are you doing working in a circus?” Stephanie asks.
Leonard slides his tongue along the back of his teeth, and blinks rapidly before he can find his voice. “I’m here because…” he stutters to a stop, shaking his head. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m just here. Will he be okay?”
She clucks softly, but nods. “He’ll be fine,” she says. “Did you two get in a fight with some of the local boys?” she asks. “They can cause trouble, but they’re not usually ones to act up like that unless there’s alcohol or a girl involved,” she says, a smile softening her words.
“No girl,” he says, “Or alcohol this time,” he adds. “Things just got a little out of hand with some of the other circus folk. Nothing too bad.”
She’s silent for a long moment, and it takes a while for him to realize that his eyes are shut and he’s leaning into her hand. Embarrassed, he straightens and moves to stand up, but she stops him, a hand on his shoulder pressing him down.
“Are you all right?” she asks, and the way she says it, level and certain and clearly wanting the truth, whatever it is, whatever it costs or matters, makes Leonard swallow back any easy lie and rethink his words.
“I just want him to be okay,” he says at last.
Stephanie’s hand is warm against his cheek. “Have you seen your eye?” she asks, trying for amused but falling much closer to concerned. “You’re acting like you failed him, but you didn’t, not with a shiner like that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Leonard says, his voice rough, and she nods, but the set of her mouth is sad, her eyes flicking away from his face, her half-smile weary.
“You don’t belong there,” she says as she turns away, peeling the gloves off of her hands, her back to Leonard.
He stares at her for a long moment and then stands as if he hadn’t heard her.
“How much do I owe you?” he asks.
He smiles back at her as he walks away, but his hands are unsteady when they fumble with the door handle.
Sheldon looks out the window the entire ride home, silent.
./.
They hadn’t shared a trunk right away, but despite himself Darren could see that Raj was good for Sheldon in those basic ways, like reminding him to eat and sleep, and however Darren felt about Sheldon, he didn’t want his main attraction getting sick or being off, so after a bit Raj moved in with Sheldon.
Sheldon, who’d been sharing the truck with Kripke (who’d hated his guts on sight and wanted him gone), and two other moderately major attractions, had felt something ease at the sight of Raj’s soft smile and quietly deliberate actions. It was Raj who’d noticed that Sheldon liked to eat at certain times, that he craved routines and rituals and a balance that had become impossibly hard to maintain in this environment, that without it Sheldon felt like he was spiraling out of control of his life, of everything.
Raj started with little things. He made sure Sheldon always sat in the seat he preferred which, given that he didn’t speak to either of the two roommates, wasn’t an easy feat. He ensured that, except for unusual circumstances, the two of them would eat at the same time each day. More than that, though, he tried to keep their friendship on an even, predictable keel.
Slowly Sheldon opened up to him. Raj could take his hand in his and squeeze it. He could work the knots out of Sheldon’s back, or brush a hand through his hair, or lay outside with him on the blanket and point out constellations.
Sheldon wasn’t quick to trust, but something about the way that Raj had to work for it forced Raj’s hand. Raj, who wandered from city to city, finally couldn’t pretend that he didn’t need anyone, that he didn’t want anyone.
Sheldon was the only one Raj spoke to. He whispered words and secrets at night as they laid side by side outside, hands clutched tightly in one another’s. And Sheldon listened-listened-like no one else had.
When Leonard came, dear, responsible Leonard, they saw him for what he was immediately. He covered for Raj when Darren was pissed that Raj wouldn’t answer, he forced Kripke to back off, he protected the both of them ruthlessly in any way he could, as if it was important, as if they mattered.
They didn’t know what to make of that. Leonard, who tried so hard to do what he thought was right.
He gave help instead of offering, which was the sort of demanding they were used to, but while they held each other’s hands, Raj learned to speak to Leonard (because he deserved it), and Sheldon learned to trust him (because he’d proved he should).
It wasn’t easy with Leonard like it was with each other, but few things are easy, and they’d both had ample cause to know that.
./.
“Darren’s gone too far this time,” Leonard says, grim.
“This time?” Penny snaps, turning on him.
“He can’t stay here,” Leonard says.
Raj is silent, arms crossed tight around himself-he hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten, can’t think clearly.
“Where’s he supposed to go?” Penny asks, edged.
“Anywhere but here-Darren’s gone over the edge, it’s not safe-”
“Nothing is safe, Leonard!” she says.
“He’s-he’s smart,” Leonard says. “He’s so smart, he could-I could-”
“What?” Wil asks. He sounds calm, but his knuckles are still raw from his fake fight last night and he looks scruffier than usual.
“I could call Beverly,” Leonard says.
They’re silent for a moment.
“Do what it takes,” Raj finally says, and there’s demand in his voice that none of them have ever heard before. “Just get him out of here.”
(Penny knows he can’t stay, but she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know where to go. She’s given up so much in her life, left so much behind, and now she’s being torn, now she’s-)
“Tell me what I need to do,” she says.
Leonard shrugs, his lips firm, his eyes helpless. Raj is looking at his feet again.
Wil looks at her appraisingly, but says nothing.
“Just get him somewhere safe,” Raj says, and he sounds broken, and maybe, Penny thinks, maybe it’s too late for all of them.
./.
Penny isn’t sure when this became so important, but she walks into the truck as if she owns it and backs Howard up against the wall. His mouth is opening and closing, as if he’s desperately trying to think of the appropriate inappropriate remark, but she shoves him back until he’s pressed against cool metal and leans in, and from the way she’s scowling Howard knows to shut up.
“You need to stop fucking with him,” she says, and she’s more than pissed, she’s furious.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Howard hisses, moving as if to stand, and she shoves him back.
“You’re a fucking ass,” she says, “I get that. But for some reason he really cares about you, so you need to clean up your act or stay away from him. My dad’s an alcoholic,” she says, and her voice has evened to an almost conversational tone, except her hand is still pressing him back against the metal, and he’s trying to avoid looking her in the eyes.
“He comes home drunk half the time, and doesn’t know where he is. My mom doesn’t want to leave him, says she owes it to him to stay, and when he’s sober enough to know better he’s too selfish to cut her free.”
“Penny,” Howard says, but he sounds more worried than angry, now, and she shoves him, hard, not even realizing that she’d started crying until a tear falls onto her bare arm.
She pushes away from him and scrubs her arm across her face, but when he reaches out to touch her she jerks away.
“Don’t,” she says, and the raw fury in her voice makes Howard step back as if scalded.
He doesn’t stop her when she turns on her heel and walks away.
./.
“Beverly,” Leonard says, voice soft, and he can hear the deep intake of breath, the astonishment coming off the other end of the line.
“Leonard?” she asks.
Before she can ask any of a hundred questions (and they’ll all be valid, won’t they? Questions like where have you been? Are you all right? Why did you run away, why didn’t you talk to me, why haven’t you called, didn’t you know I’d be worried, didn’t you care, didn’t you think, didn’t-) he clears his throat, and then starts speaking, his voice sharp and deliberate. It’s her tone, in fact, reflected back upon her, her inflections that proclaim that what is necessary must come first, and everything else can wait.
(And he knows about the waiting, it’s inscribed in his bones. “Not yet,” the career woman in the joke says, “I’ll go into labor when I’ve finished this.”
He knows that’s not what happened.
He also knows the anecdote isn’t funny at all.)
“I have a-I have a friend. He’s smart, he’s-brilliant, genius smart, and he’s here, instead, and he shouldn’t be here, he should-he needs to be-these equations that he writes, and he has no formal training, he needs to be somewhere on the West Coast, he needs the resources that you have.”
He has to give her credit-she doesn’t emphasize that this is a favor, that he needs her, doesn’t mention that he ran away, or ask him to come home.
She stays on point, firing questions at him. She wants faxes of those equations (as if there’s a fax machine within a hundred miles, as if they have things like that here, as if he didn’t leave all that behind when he left), she wants background on Sheldon, she wants Sheldon, hand delivered on a golden platter, if he’s half of what Leonard’s saying he is.
And Leonard knows what he’s saying.
At one point, this was his world, after all.
./.
“I don’t know if he should go,” Leonard says. His hands are over his face, so his voice is a little muffled, but Penny makes it out well enough. She shrugs.
“It’s his choice, isn’t it?”
“I could talk him into it,” he says. She sighs, running a hand through her hair.
“There’s going to come a point,” she says, “Where you’re going to have to realize that you’re responsible for yourself, and nothing else.”
“Penny-”
“Just because it’s easier trying to sort out Sheldon’s life than yours, doesn’t mean you can just keep running away.”
Leonard’s quiet for a minute. “I’m not running away anymore,” he says. “I have to go with him, I can’t send him off on his own.”
“Are you ready?” Penny asks, honestly worried, and Leonard shrugs, miserable.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think I have to be.”
She nods uneasily.
“Are you coming?” Leonard asks her, and she looks down.
“Yes,” she says. (She has no other choice, she has no other option, she can’t do anything else because maybe, she thinks, maybe she needs him even more than she thinks he needs her.)
./.
Wil sits next to Raj.
“Hey,” he says, bumping his shoulder gently against Raj’s.
Raj doesn’t say anything.
They sit there for a little while, quiet.
“This isn’t your fault,” Wil says.
Raj has never liked talking all that much.
./.
It rained a bit earlier, and the wet ground is starting to seep through the blanket. Penny and Sheldon don’t seem to notice the way their sides are slowly getting wet, though. Their bodies are curled against one another, his arm tucked around her, pulling her back snug against his chest, her fingers interlaced with his.
We could run away, she wants to say. Just the two of us, we could start all over.
She doesn’t say it, though. She doesn’t want to run anymore.
He doesn’t hold her like Leonard did, as if he knew she was planning on slipping away. Sheldon holds her like he’s ready to let her go whenever she wants.
It shouldn’t make her cling to him more, but it does. She wants to prove to him that she can stay, to tell him that he’s worth staying for.
I won’t leave you, she wants to tell him.
She lies on the damp blanket and holds his hand as if she’ll never let him go.
(But she would if he asked, and they both know it.)
./.
Howard sits down. No one else is in the truck, and he pulls open his trunk, letting things fall out haphazardly until he finds the case. He yanks it out and drags it over to one of the benches. Inside, he has a computer he’s half put back together-it’s something he does when he’s stressed or bored or needs distracting, but it’s sat untouched inside his truck for the better part of a month.
He pulls out pieces, resting them on the bench, his back curved sharply as he leans in on them. He blinks damp eyes, forcing himself to concentrate only on the issue at hand, but his hands won’t stop trembling. He breathes in, breathes out, and sets them down on his legs and waits. But when he tries again they’re still unsteady, and he can’t make them still, can’t force control.
He stumbles to his feet, and his pulse is loud in his ears as he grabs the glass half-filled with liquor and smashes it onto the ground. Glass scatters, liquor spilling out, and he watches it for a minute, mesmerized by the way the color dilutes against the harsh plains of the truck floor. He should clean it, he thinks-Sheldon has had enough to deal with without the mess-but his throat is closing in, and before he can stop himself he stumbles back, away from the mess.
He half-falls down against the wall until he’s sitting, the wall hard against his back. He tucks his hands in tight against his body, his legs drawn in, his face buried in his knees, and he can’t stop himself from crying, because he did this.
He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, but finally, tears still wet on his face, he stands and grabs the remaining liquor bottles from his cabinet. He opens the door and dumps them out, watching the alcohol spill into the dirt, and then he throws them into the trash. Methodically, now, still crying, he starts collecting the shards with a towel, and then finally mops up the alcohol.
He sits on the bench, legs crossed, and watches his hands shake in his lap.
“0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144… 233… 377… 610… 987… 1597… 2584… 4181… 6765… 10946… 17711…”
It helps, a little.
It’s not enough.
./.
Penny turns, ignoring the wet blanket underneath her, until she’s facing Sheldon. Their faces are close, so that she can feel the soft brush of his exhalation as he looks at her. His arm is still wrapped around her waist, and his fingers move lightly along her back, forming some sort of pattern.
“Whatever happens,” she says, “I’m going to be by your side. If you want me there.”
Sheldon tries on a crooked sort of smile, and it hurts her, the way even this happiness seems a pretence.
“Penny-” he says, and she knows, now, that she has to risk it.
“Please,” she says, blinking wet eyes. “I need you.”
The words are hard to manage, because Penny doesn’t admit to needing anyone, she doesn’t do vulnerable, but she knows that if she wants to keep Sheldon, she’s got to earn it.
Sheldon’s eyes are wide. He’s never had someone tell him they need him before. There’s responsibility inherent in the words, as well as a request.
He’s not sure what to say, what to do, except he realizes that unlike everyone else, she’s not demanding anything of him. Asking, yes, but what she wants can’t be demanded, can’t be forced. He has to give it willingly. He has to offer it freely.
He lets the idea roll in his mind for a minute. He’s been sure that she’d been on the cusp of leaving, he’d been sure that nothing he could do could make her stay. And everyone he cares about is hurt.
But if she needs him…
Maybe he could protect her, if she needed protecting.
Maybe he could take of her, like she’d always been ready to take care of him.
Except…he’d have to be able to take care of himself, first. He could be brave for her, but could be brave for himself?
“Sheldon?” she asks, and he closes his eyes, his fingers pressing lightly into her back.
He presses his lips to hers gently.
“I need you, too,” he says.
-IX-
when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire
Raj is lying on his stomach on one of the benches, one arm tucked underneath him and the other working on a sketch of Sheldon sitting in the grass, head in his hands. When Howard comes in, Raj doesn’t move, or turn and look, or even shift from his position. Howard leans against the edge of the bunks, watching him silently, watching the way Raj shifts the pencil in his hand, the way the dim light in the room shades and brightens him in turn.
“I’m sorry,” he says at last, and unlike before, when his words were heated and irritated and possessive, this time Howard sounds desperate and at the end of his rope. Raj keeps sketching, silent.
“I need help,” Howard says, and the words sound half-torn out, raw and ragged over a throat desperate to close around them. Raj’s hand stills as Howard makes a choked sound, arms digging tightly around his stomach, as if he’s trying to hold himself together, keep his insides from falling out, and Raj bows his head, because he’s afraid to look at him, afraid to-to accept.
“I don’t want to be my father,” Howard says, and the anguish in those words brings Raj to his feet, and Howard buries his face against Raj’s neck, clings to him as if he’s all he has left in the world. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Raj’s throat, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, the words tumbling against each other, and Raj holds him together, holds him up, holds him close.
“I know,” he says finally. “I know you are.”
./.
When Sheldon walks in, Leonard has pulled out all of Sheldon’s books, all of his notebooks. The whiteboard with the scrawled equations is perched prominently on one of the benches. The calculator has been knocked to the floor.
The scene is so familiar to one of his past-
(Sheldon walked into the house and Jesse threw him against the wall. “What is this shit?” he’d yelled, gesturing to the books pulled from the loose floorboard, the papers pulled from underneath the mattress-“Explain what the fuck is going on!”
“I-” Sheldon had said, floundering for words, and Jesse had knocked him to the floor.
Later, after he was done with his talk, he’d hauled it all out to the back and lit it on fire. Sheldon had watched from the attic window where Jesse had left him, fingers to the glass as everything he wanted went up in flames.)
-The scene is so familiar that Sheldon stumbles against the nearest set of bunks, eyes wide, air caught in his lungs.
“Sheldon!” Leonard calls out, hurrying to his side, and Sheldon shakes his head, dizzy with fear, and half-collapses to his knees.
“Please-” he whispers, “Please-”
“It’s all right,” Leonard says, a hand on his arm. “It’s all right.”
It takes a long explanation, as Leonard swallows back helpless guilt at Sheldon’s reaction.
“Beverly says you’ll have a place at one of the University’s,” he tells him. “You’ll be out of here, away from Darren, away from Kripke, and you’ll be able to do what you like doing.”
(Leonard doesn’t know what makes Sheldon pause. He doesn’t recognize the fear for what it is-fear of failure, of change, or responsibility, of risk-despite the fact that those fears have so often belonged to him.
Leonard doesn’t realize that Sheldon has been afraid of what he loves for so long that even the thought of pursuing it is terrifying.)
“You won’t be alone,” Leonard says. “I’ll go with you, and the others probably will, too. We’ll be there for you.”
(Leonard doesn’t realize that Sheldon has brought down everyone he cares about, that he’s dangerous, that the risk with them there can only be greater.)
“You deserve to be happy,” Leonard says. “You deserve more than this.”
(And Sheldon knows he doesn’t, knows he can’t, knows he-)
“It’s only logical,” Leonard says, breathless, terrified, “It’s only logical that you work in a field where you can offer something to the world beyond entertainment.”
(Leonard thinks he’s being harsh. Leonard thinks it’s too much, but he doesn’t know what else to say.
Sheldon is thinking of George, who wanted to cast him in his own image. Sheldon is thinking of Jesse, who wanted to make him into something he’s not. Sheldon can’t think of himself, not yet, nor can he think of Leonard, or Penny, or Raj, or Howard.
But the world. Academia. Science. Sheldon can think about them.
Sheldon can think about what he owes them, if not what he owes himself. He can think about what they deserve, if not what he deserves.)
“Darren won’t let me,” he says, because it’s true, because it’s maybe his last escape from change, even if it’s for the better, even if it’s necessary.
Leonard shakes his head. “I’ll take care of that.”
./.
Raj is sitting cross-legged outside in the parched grass when Penny finds him. She stands behind him, letting him lean back against her legs as she plays with his hair and watches the circus once more curl open like a flower, petal by petal pulling back and becoming whole.
“He said he’ll get help,” Raj says, and there’s doubt in his voice but Penny knows enough to let it pass.
“Okay,” she says instead, and Raj’s hand curls along her ankle as he leans back into her and tilts his head up until he can see her face.
“I have to see if he will,” he says, and Penny smiles, a little hopeful, a little sad.
“We’ll be there,” she says. “Either way, whatever happens, you’re not alone.”
He frowns a little, as if the concept is new, as if all these years later he hasn’t realized how far he’s come, how he’s no longer trapped and desperate in a prison of blood and obligation. He blinks against a sudden well of tears he wasn’t expecting, and tries on a smile for her sake.
“He can’t stay here,” he says, changing the subject, and her face falls a little, clouded by what’s hovering over all of them. She glances up at the blue sky above them, her blonde hair spilling back at the movement, her lips pressed tightly together.
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, and if Raj had ever had any doubts he knows, now, that she’s not leaving Sheldon. He nods, because he’s not jealous that Sheldon has found someone else to trust, and he’s not worried about being alone, because he’s leaned himself back against her without a second thought, sure that she’d be there.
She’s right, he realizes.
He squeezes her ankle gently and then stands up, stretching a little along the way.
“I need to find Howard,” he says. “I’m not going to let him change his mind.”
./.
Leonard approaches Darren with as little fear as he can manage, sure that, like an animal, Darren would be able to smell it, and would be merciless upon finding it.
“I want Sheldon out of his contract,” he says, forgoing any even vague pretence of small talk.
Darren smiles, except it’s slow and cruel and entirely too amused.
“Do you, now?” he says. Leonard very carefully does not ball his hand into a fist.
“He signed the contract under duress, as you well know, and it won’t do any good for this circus to have its reputation dragged through the mud,” he says. His words are clipped, his West Coast accent (or lack thereof) sounding over pronounced in the enclosed space of Darren’s truck.
Darren leans back a little in his chair, letting his eyes draw along Leonard. When he glances away, the lift of his lips declare exactly what he thinks of him, and the opinion is clearly not a high one.
“You really shouldn’t pick battles you can’t win,” he says.
Leonard-Leonard may have had a nervous breakdown, and he may have run away from everyone he knew and wandered aimlessly, and he may have somehow found his way into working in a circus, but here’s the thing:
Leonard, for everything he ever has been or is, has never stopped being Beverly’s son.
“Important people want him,” he says, and he can feel the sharp edge of his voice, and it sounds like his mother’s when she’s arguing with people who don’t want to cough up money for important research. “I can drown you in court fees until you’re begging me to destroy the contract. However you want to play this, Sheldon is coming with me.”
“Look at the little boy, trying to play with the sharks,” Darren sneers. Leonard’s face flickers to stone, his hands clenched at his side.
“He’s coming with me,” he says, and pulls away.
./.
Leslie Winkle shows up at the show that night. She’s got a backpack of clothes and whatever else, and her hair’s tied back tightly. Her nose keeps wrinkling a little as she looks around the place, but she doesn’t make any comments, and no one quite manages to stop her when she walks around back after the show.
“Hey,” she says when she comes across Leonard. He’s got his back to her, but he straightens slowly and turns toward her, because he recognizes that pitch, that tone.
“What‘re you doing here?” he asks, and she shrugs, tugging the bottom of her shirt almost nervously, except he knows Leslie doesn’t do nervous, especially not with Leonard. He wipes his hands on his plaid shirt, and then glances down at himself, amused, seeing himself as she must be seeing him.
They haven’t seen each other since before he ran off from school. They’d been competitors of a sort. Friends, too, in their own way. They’d been each other’s first kiss. She’d slapped him when she had felt it was necessary. They’d worked on projects together, tested each other, tried to one-up each other.
“Your mom told me where you were,” she says. “I was due for a vacation, and I was curious about this supposed genius.”
“He is a genius,” Leonard says, his words a bit too quick, his tone a tad too sharp. She pauses, surprised, and he shrugs, uncomfortable. “He is,” he repeats.
“I also wanted to make sure you were coming back, too,” she says, her voice a little softer. “However much of a genius your friend is, it wouldn’t hurt our research department if we were to add another Dr. Hofstadter to the team.”
Leonard stares at her in open-mouthed shock for almost a full minute.
“Did you just compliment me?” he asks, clearly disbelieving, and she grins.
“It’s not going to happen often,” she says. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“You’ve never complimented me,” he says. She shrugs and then crosses her arms, rocks back on her heels.
“You should’ve said goodbye,” she says. Leonard is quiet for a moment.
“I know.”
“I was worried,” she admits.
Again, Leonard is struck speechless. Leslie Winkle isn’t the sort to be worried, especially not about him, especially not…
“Worried?” he asks. She nods.
“Are you coming back?” she asks.
He is, of course. He’s not about to throw Sheldon into that shark tank alone. But, for the first time, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, going back won’t be such a terrible thing.
“Yes,” he says, and the word sounds like relief even to him, and when Leslie smiles it’s one of the most perfect things he’s ever seen.
./.
There is a scene, in one of the final episodes, where Picard is looking out of one of the view screens, hands clasped behind his back, back bowed as if by some extraordinary weight. A final battle is fast approaching, and he knows there is no trick he can pull, no clever stunt to escape, that they must stand fast in this fight, and that they might not survive.
He was never meant to captain a warship-it was a twist of fate, that the first stirrings of war occurred when they did, that events played out as they had, and he has often felt unprepared for the weight of such a command, of the loss that comes from such circumstances.
He says nothing, as he looks out the window, but his lips are pinched, dark circles underneath his eyes. The camera pans slowly around him, taking him in, and he has aged in some impossible way and yet remains the exact mirror image of the man who walked onto the bridge a mere four years ago.
There is no gaudy background music to force emotion. It is only the image of a man facing down an impossible future, and readying himself for what is to come.
The scene runs less than a minute and a half, but essays have been written on it. This is the face of duty, they write, this is how you look when you have nothing left to lose.
Years afterwards, in an interview, Patrick Stewart had shaken his head contemplatively. “It’s funny,” he said, “I always thought that that scene was about hope, not despair.”
./.
This is how it goes:
Everyone’s waiting. They’re not exactly sure what they’re waiting for. Maybe there’s something in the air. Maybe they just don’t know what to do next. Leonard’s considering calling up Beverly for legal counsel. Leslie’s trying to figure out where she’s going to stay. Penny is nearing the end of her rope, and Raj doesn’t have much farther to fall.
Sheldon, though, chooses not to endlessly debate the matter.
(Sheldon doesn’t like risk. He doesn’t like chance. He’s afraid, and he can feel that fear cling to him-coat itself inside his throat, tremble along his nerves, tie itself until it restricts his heart.
He doesn’t like risk, but he doesn’t like fear, either, and he’s had enough of being afraid, had enough of backing away.
He wants to be brave. For her, for his friends, for the world, for everyone and anything.
For himself. Because they said he deserves it, and maybe-just maybe-they’re right.)
The next show, Darren announces him, and Sheldon rides out on horseback.
He doesn’t hit one target.
Each shot is wide, each knife is wide, each stunt fails miserably.
The audience are on their feet booing.
Penny, watching from above as usual, is tying herself up in knots, unsure of what to do. (“Trust me,” Sheldon had said earlier, before the show. “Just trust me.”)
Darren loses it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yells, coming out into the middle of the ring, and Darren’s usually the consummate professional during the show but this is simply too much. If it was anyone else he might have let it go until afterwards, but not Sheldon-never Sheldon.
Sheldon’s already done with the horseback portion of his act, so he’s standing, knife in hand, guns in holsters, when Darren comes out.
Darren, who’s forgetting that he’s still miked.
“You want me send you back to your uncle and have him beat some shit into, you little fucker?” Darren hisses, getting in nice and close to Sheldon. “You want me to drag you back to my bunk and take what you’re always offering, you little fucking slut, is that what you fucking want? Is it?”
Darren’s hand is tangled in Sheldon’s shirt collar as he forces him backwards until he’s pinned against one of the poles.
“I will fucking beat you until you can’t walk for this little stunt, and you know I will, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again you little shit, and don’t think your friends can protect you this time, I’ll tell Jesse you’re here and deliver you to him tied up and crying those pretty little tears of yours.”
Sheldon is crying, but he’s smiling fiercely through his tears.
“I don’t need my friends to protect me, you fuck,” he says, his voice hoarse, and then he pulls a gun from his holster and presses it up underneath Darren’s chin.
(Darren always said he’d never seen no one draw a gun as fast as Sheldon could.)
“Smile,” Sheldon whispers, and his hand trembles but it’s steady enough that Darren doesn’t dare move. He knows how good Sheldon is. How beautifully perfect a shot Sheldon is.
“You won’t do it,” Darren says, but his voice shakes with real fear, because he knows he’s pushed Sheldon too far.
“I could,” Sheldon says. “All that matters is that I could pull this trigger.”
And then Darren says it, because Sheldon’s eyes dark, and his lip is curling, Darren says “Please.”
Sheldon looks at him a minute longer, and then pulls the gun back and slams it roughly into his holster. “I want out of my contract,” he says, and pulls away.
Sheldon’s about fifteen feet away when Darren throws himself against Sheldon’s unprotected back, knocking the knife away and sending it skittering across the ground. Sheldon goes for the guns but Darren’s pins his hands above him, and it’s clear that he’s forgotten the audience now, completely caught up in the moment.
He’s furious and blinded by rage, and has no idea four people are already running towards him.
Leonard hits Darren, and the feel of his fist against Darren’s flesh has been a long time coming, and it hurts like a bitch, but for the first time in his life Leonard feels like he’s making a stand, and it feels better than he ever knew it could be.
Howard and Raj and Penny pull Darren off Sheldon, and then Leonard off Darren, and Leslie’s there now, trying to talk Leonard down.
“Stay away from my friend!” Raj screams at Darren, and the sound carries through the area, and he stumbles back a bit when he realizes what he just did, but Howard’s there to catch him.
Darren gets off the ground, slowly, feeling the shocked gaze of everyone there.
“I’m sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was an unfortunate spectacle for you to have to see, but-”
The rest of his words are drowned out by booing.
“Out of my contract,” Sheldon says, and then the six of them walk out, together.
-X-
don’t forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries.
Yes
“I didn’t-” Kripke sounds breathless as he steps in front of Sheldon-“You have to undewstand, I didn’t know. He said-Dawwen said you’d scwewed some guys wife, that some husband was after you, that-I didn’t know.”
Leonard and Penny both start to take a step closer, but Leslie has suddenly pushed her way next to Sheldon, her stance proprietary. “And you are?”
“I’m-” Kripke takes a moment to blink at her before shrugging it away and grabbing Sheldon’s arm, pulling him forward with a firm tug. The shock of it takes them all by surprise-that he’d just grabbed Sheldon, that-
“I neveh woohd’ve-”
Leslie grabs Kripke’s ear and yanks. Hard. “Get your hands off my scientist,” she hisses, thoroughly pissed off. “He doesn’t like to be touched.”
Kripke lets go of Sheldon as if he’d just spontaneously combusted (except not really, of course, fucking pyro that he is). Leonard gently eases Leslie away from Kripke while Penny loops an arm through Sheldon’s.
“Leslie, I appreciate the concern, but I’m all right,” Sheldon says, his free hand gently straightening his shirt.
“I-I neveh-Coopeh-” Kripke says, and there’s real remorse in his eyes, but Sheldon shakes his head.
“I don’t need your apologies,” he says, his voice soft. “You simply aren’t worth it, Kripke.”
./.
Wil slips a number into Howard’s pocket.
“Oh!” Howard says, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m kinda with Raj now, I can’t-”
“It’s a rehab facility,” Wil says, cutting him off. “Just something to think about.”’
Howard is silent, but just when Wil thinks he’s gone and insulted him, Howard nods. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”
./.
“Hey,” Leslie says, bumping into Leonard’s arm. “Sorry about the-ah-incident.”
Leonard shakes his head, amused. “Kripke had it coming,” he says.
She nods, thoughtfully.
“I was thinking about buying some horses,” she says, changing the subject. “But I don’t know if I could take care of them on my own.”
Leonard looks at her for a long moment, until she can’t quite hide the smile that’s threatening to spill out onto her lips.
“Just something to think about,” she says. “It’s a big house, you wouldn’t even need to see me if you didn’t want to.”
“You haven’t seen me for years,” Leonard says with a frown. She shrugs.
“I tend to know what I want,” she says.
They keep walking, the both of them silent. Finally, Leonard glances at Leslie.
“What if I wanted to see you?” he asks.
She grins.
“I’m sure we can figure something out.”
./.
Wil finds Penny outside. His fingers curl around her wrist as he pulls her away from the others, and he brushes her hair back behind her ear with a smile.
“I made some calls,” he says. “We could all do with a face like that, a heart like that,” he says, and she frowns at him, confused, because clearly he’s babbling and after everything that’s happened-
“Leonard got Sheldon a place at one of the Uni’s, right?” Wil asks, and she nods slowly.
“His mother called, and he’s got a position with Dr. Gablehauser,” she says. “We’re leaving-well, we’re leaving as soon as we can,” she says. Wil smirks a little as he chucks her underneath the chin.
“I still have a few contacts,” he says. “I made some calls and set up some interviews. I can’t promise you anything for sure, of course,” he says. “But you’ll get the auditions, and with a smile like that you’ll get something. You’ve got the talent.”
“You set up…auditions…?” she asks, still confused, and now the smile edging around his lips is entirely too close to laughter for her liking.
“It may have been a while since Star Trek: Last Stand, but it’s not something that people tend to forget,” he says, a little grin tugging at his lips. Her mouth drops open in a slight ‘o’ of surprise, and he laughs, clearly delighted. “Ensign Crusher, at your service,” he says, dropping her a little salute. “Killed in the Battle of Traxis, never to be seen again.” He waves a finger admonishingly. “Understand that he’s been resurrected solely for you, and it’s a secret I rather hope you’ll keep.”
“You have to tell Sheldon,” she says, still wide-eyed, and his eyebrow quirks up as he looks at her.
“He has an eidetic memory,” he says. “That’s not a secret I ever could have kept from him.”
./.
Under the big top, a growing chorus of voices draws them in.
Darren is surrounded by a group of people-a large group of people. None of them are happy.
“You fucking coward,” someone shouts, and several people call out agreement.
“Think you can fuck with people just because you’re the ringmaster?” someone else yells, and the people press in closer. From out of the center, a familiar face appears, walking forward with purpose and anger spread equally across his face.
“Is this how you wun a ciwcus?” Kripke asks, gesturing at the people grouped behind him. “You awen’t one of us anymowe,” he says.
“You aren’t one of us anymore,” the others repeat. Darren shakes his head, stumbling back a step, but Kripke follows him.
“Get out,” he says. “This is ouw ciwcus now. You don’t bewong hewe.”
“You don’t belong here.”
Darren is pale as he falls back another step and finds himself pinned against a fence.
“You’we going to weave, and neveh come back,” Kripke says, and Darren-
Darren is looking at the people gathered around him, clearly pissed off. To the side he sees Wil, but Wil is leaning back against a truck and brushing his nails against his shirt. When he sees Darren looking at him, desperate, he grins slowly, quite self-satisfied, and Darren mutters a strangled epithet.
“You undewstand?” Kripke asks, forcing himself ever closer into Darren’s space, and Darren has no choice, no choice at all.
“You’ll pay for this,” he hisses, and Krikpe just grins.
“You’we out,” he says.
And Darren says nothing, because he knows he is.
./.
Penny, being Penny, sizes up the boy’s truck. “We’ll be short two bunks,” she says. She shrugs. It’s a couple of beds, after all. “We’ll make do.”
Kripke knows enough by now that he makes no comment when she slides by him and reaches her hand down into Darren’s inside pocket. When she grabs the key she flips it deliberately in her fingers so that the metal catches the light and shines for a moment in front of Darren’s eyes.
“I don’t think you’ll be needing this,” she says.
He stays silent. Probably for the best.
It only takes her a moment to grab her belongings from her trunk and shove them into a bag. She moves to swing it over her shoulder, but Sheldon stops her with a hand on her arm. His lip is still bleeding, and without even thinking she wipes the blood off of his chin with her thumb.
He stands there, lets her, his eyes on hers.
“Penny,” he says. His voice is soft, and when he moves to take the bag she lets him. To him, at least, she has nothing to prove.
Outside, the circus has fallen silent.
Most everyone is outside, watching them, waiting to see what they’ll do next. Sheldon puts her bag in the back of the truck, his back too straight, clearly uncomfortable with the weight of everyone’s eyes, but she’s not exactly thrilled with it, either.
“Well,” she says. Kripke moves to step forward, but she glares at him until he backs down.
Leonard stirs over to the side. “This is awkward,” he mutters, and Leslie rolls her eyes.
“Let’s just go,” she says, and Penny smiles reluctantly before shrugging. Wil steps out from the side and nods briefly to Leonard before walking closer to the two of them.
Wil grabs Sheldon firmly, and dips him, despite Sheldon’s outraged yelp. Before Sheldon can get anything else out, Wil’s mouth is on Sheldon’s, his tongue sliding between Sheldon’s lips, and Sheldon, taken completely by surprise, is frozen for a moment. He tentatively starts kissing back, and Wil makes a noise of intense interest as he explores the entirety of Sheldon’s mouth, and then, with a last kiss, he pulls him back up to a standing position.
Sheldon is still blinking when Wil runs the pad of his thumb over Penny’s lips and then kisses her softly.
Leonard and Leslie and Howard and Raj have already climbed into the back of the truck. They’ve said their goodbyes and there’s nothing holding them here anymore, but Penny’s wavers, her hand pressed against Wil’s shirt, Sheldon to her side.
“I don’t like goodbyes,” Sheldon says, voice rough, and his hand tangles with hers and he steps back. Penny climbs up into the driver’s seat as Sheldon walks around, and when the door shuts, Wil throws her a salute.
“Leave the porch light on,” he says, amused. “I’ll be out to see you sooner or later.”
Penny grins down at him and then pulls out her hair tie, shaking her hair out and letting it fall down around her shoulders.
“Promises, promises,” she calls out, and he winks at her.
Sheldon huffs as he leans over her and looks down at Wil. “I believe she’s insinuating you’re not a man of your word,” he says.
Wil smirks. “Ensign Crusher is always a man of his word,” he says. “ ‘If there is no honor in battle-’ ”
“ ‘-then why would we fight?’” Sheldon finishes. They stare at each other for a long moment, and then with a slam Leonard opens the sliding door to the back of the truck.
“Hey,” he says, “Are we getting out of here or what?”
Wil slams his hand twice against the door of the truck. “Don’t let him fuck everything up,” he says, and Penny nods, and laughs, and then revs the engine as Wil steps back.
“You flirt, you,” she says, and then pushes down on the gas.
Leonard and Leslie are bickering in the back, and Howard and Raj are playing cards, and Sheldon is sitting next to Penny, a notepad open on his lap, a pen held loosely in his hand.
Without looking, without thinking, she reaches out her hand and places it near his. He glances up at her and then takes it in his own, his palm warm against hers, his long fingers intertwining with hers.
Beside them, fields stretch towards the horizon; in front of them is a road that spills out forever.
They don’t look back.
finis
AN: My love and thanks to all of you ♥
./.