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Part-Time Fan
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 274
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Quote:
"Sheldon!" Amy knocked on the door again, but there was still no response. She tried the handle and the door swung open - a little way, before hitting some obstruction. She edged sideways into Sheldon's office, which was mostly occupied by a post-colonialist statement in the form of a monstrosity of a desk she assumed belonged to Rajesh.
Sheldon stood in front of a whiteboard, his back to her, subtly contorted into a pose that would make a chiropractor wince.
"Sheldon?" she tried again, but he didn't seem to have the faintest awareness of anything outside the board. It was covered in a dense, tangled matrix of lines, interspersed with equations. He rubbed out a corner and started redrawing it, hunched over.
"Sheldon, I've been waiting outside for twenty minutes. We're going to miss the lecture."
No response. He didn't even turn to look at her. Amy considered the situation and decided it warranted drastic action. She stepped forward and lightly touched his shoulder.
"Ahhh!" Sheldon jerked around to stare at her in panic, wide eyed. "Who are you?"
"We have met before. Nineteen times, to be precise," she straightened her shoulders and informed him. "I am Amy Farrah Fowler."
He blinked and relaxed very slightly, features settling into a less disturbing configuration and marginally climbing up from a spot well into the uncanny valley. "Yes, you are."
"Yes, I am," she agreed. Goodness, this was like talking to a badly programmed emergent AI or someone on the subway. "We had a-" she stumbled over the word 'date'. It didn't mean date, date, of course, but still "-an appointment."
"We did?" he frowned. "We did. I can't go. I need to stay here. The model is in four dimensions but the board..."
He twisted to look back at the board and Amy had the sense that if those lines filled his field of vision again, she'd lose even this toehold of a conversation. On that basis, she touched his shoulder again, keeping him oriented towards her.
"The board only has two," she pointed out, trying to keep him on earth and out of hyperspace.
"It only has two..." he agreed vaguely. He slowly turned his head to stare at her hand, still on his shoulder. She hastily withdrew it but he caught her wrist in a startlingly quick motion and stared at it with an odd, intense concentration.
What was happening here? Was this the time to scream? Mother had always told her never to let herself be alone in a room with a man after sunset, but Sheldon's grip was gentle. Amy decided not to scream. The moment stretched out, far too long, and then he shifted his gaze from her wrist to her face.
"I have to go," he said. He dropped her wrist, pushed past her, grabbed his bag from his desk and was gone. Amy was left alone with his whiteboard, a deal of confusion and an unexpected warmth in her cheeks. Maybe she was coming down with something.
She shook her head, gave the whiteboard and it's rather elegant geometric grid pattern a quick final glace and went back to her car. There was no sign of Sheldon anywhere along the way. Did he do things like this often? It was one thing to be passionate about one's work, but this showy encompassing immersion was just rather unseemly. A bit adolescent, really.
"I may have to let him go," she said to the empty Caltech parking lot.
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"Amy," knocknocknock. "Amy," knocknocknock. "Amy," knocknocknock.
She sighed, put down the slice of brain, and turned to the door of her lab. "Come in, Sheldon."
It had been four days. He looked like himself again. Whatever mathematical demon had settled into his brain appeared to have granted him a furlough for a visit back to the rest of the human race.
"I wanted to apologize for missing the lecture. It can't have been any fun without me to explain it to you," he said.
"It was a lecture on place-name etymology in 19th Century California," Amy said. "Not a subject you have any particular insight into. And besides, I didn't go."
"Why not?" he asked.
"It was too late," she said. I was not terribly interested in place-name etymology in 19th Century California, she admitted to herself.
"So all the more my fault," he said. "Good."
"Why is that good?"
"I brought you something, and I wasn't sure if it's not too much for the offense."
"A gift?" she frowned.
He pulled what appeared to be a crochet blanket out of a plastic bag and handed it to her. Amy raised her gloved, brain-matter encrusted hands.
"Of course," he said. "I'll just leave this here." He draped the blanket over the back of a chair and turned to go.
"Wait. Sheldon, why are you giving me a blanket?"
He turned back as if surprised there was anything to explain. "Well, you inspired it, after all. You and string theory. And I don't have anything else to do with 264 crochet squares anymore."
"You made this?"
He nodded. "It took so long because I had to learn how to crochet. A surprisingly tricky art."
"Why?"
"It's my model. You were right - I needed more dimensions. So I crocheted it. Your cardigan made me think of it." He turned to go again, hesitated. "Thank you. Goodbye."
"Thank you, too," Amy called after him. "For the blanket."
She looked at it. What was she going to do with a crocheted blanket? Well, it was rather pretty. And Sheldon had made it our of maths.
All right, it could stay.
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Inspired by The Institute For Figuring // Online Exhibit: Hyperbolic Space
Edit - er, this got long, somehow. I thought it was going to be short, I swear.
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