Spoilers for Season Seven Finale! I own nothing. I am also currently displeased with several of the people who do own things, including but not limited to Bill Prady, Chuck Lorre and Steve Molaro…

The Make-up Inefficacy

Homecoming Miscalculation

"I am home." Sheldon said, approaching Amy from the open door of her lab. She glanced up from the brain she was dissecting, raised an eye brow, shook her head and went back to work. "I said, I am home." He repeated cautiously walking toward her, suddenly very aware of the scalpel in her right hand and almost deadly accuracy with it.

"I am aware. Penny invited me the welcome home party." Amy said, not looking up again. "Instead I came here. My work is flourishing."

Sheldon felt certain that was a well-deserved jab, but let it slide so that he could just look at her for a moment. Penny had warned him that Amy had changed a bit over the summer. He didn't like to believe that. But, he could see her hair, though pulled back in her usual work pony tail, was longer, wavier and a shade or two lighter. Her skin looked gently sun-kissed. He would have to address the apparent lapses in her sunscreen usage at some more opportune moment. Her body was hidden by her lab coat, but her bare legs seemed leaner and shiny. As if she might have recently smoothed baby oil onto her skin… He willed that concept out of his mind. "I am glad to hear that." He coughed slightly, trying to find the words to make her put the scalpel down and look at him… "Put the scalpel down and look at me."

Amy stopped her work and stared harder at the brain. "I just know there was a "please, Amy," somewhere in that barrage of orders."

"Please, Amy."

Slowly, she set the scalpel down on the dissection tray, she stripped off her purple examination gloves and tossed them in the bio-hazard container. Then she turned and looked at him, her face devoid of expression. He thought he saw something flash in her jade green eyes, but it was just a flash. "My scalpel is down, I am looking at you." Pause. "You are welcome."

"Yes… Thank you. I know we haven't spoken in a while. Not since you sent the termination addendum to the relationship agreement…" he sounded hurt.

"For cause. You consistently failed to meet the minimum communication requirements. Since you were already delinquent on so many of your other duties and were unavailable to participate in remedial coursework, I clearly had no choice." Amy's blank expression morphed into something more satisfied.

"I spent 4 days in a celluar dead zone…" he began to explain, "I emailed that information to you that after the fact…"

"Three days after you allegedly escaped from this alleged dead zone. Did they allegedly have no landlines?" Amy halted him, "Sheldon, I don't want to get into this. I broke up with you because you were too cowardly to break up with me. It had to be done, I did it. That is all."

"We are not broken up." Sheldon hissed. "I never received the notarized…"

"I didn't have a mailing address!" Amy hissed back. "I was therefore not required to remit…"

"We are not broken up!" Sheldon said in a louder voice. "And I now need to talk to you!"

"Send me a meeting request on Microsoft Outlook!" Amy grabbed another pair of purple gloves and pulled them on, "I might have some free time next week." She said, in a calmer voice.

"Amy, I am home!" Sheldon said, talking a deep breath and touching her arm. "I am home."

She jerked her arm away as though he'd burned her with a cigarette, "Don't touch me." She said pulling back, "I rescind any and all permission given explicitly or implied for any touching between us." He looked shocked and she smiled at seeing that. Then she grew serious again, "I don't know what I am supposed to say about the fact that you say you are home. I don't know what you expect that means to me, now. It's been over four months."

"Amy, I want us to resume our relationship again. I was wrong to take out my frustrations about other aspects of my life out on you." He said. "I used my time away to assess what is important to me and you are important to me."

Amy took a step back, "How thrilling." She said drily. "When you say resume our relationship, do you mean pick up from where we left off?"

"Yes." Sheldon said.

"You mean the point where you shamed me for daring to ask you to entertain the possibility of us having a future together that involved co-habitation, so much so that you mocked the idea of growing old with me?" She asked, "Is that where you want to pick up from?" She smirked when he began to stutter a bit.

"No, not from there. Amy I did apologize for that. You accepted the apology of over the phone!"

"I know. I am just trying to find the point in time from which you want us to resume the relationship. Should we go back before Valentine's Day and pretend you never kissed me? Or shall we go back further still?" she was getting worked up. "Forget it. Just get out of my lab. Just go." She went to her desk and swiveled her chair so she faced the window and worked to slow down her breathing.

"I am ready to commit to our relationship, Amy." Sheldon grabbed a chair and sat beside her.

"Just like the old gypsy woman said?" She asked, looking miserable. "What do you even mean by that? Commit to me."

"I want us to resume our relationship. Only… I would do better this time." He felt her body jerk slightly with something like a sob, but he pressed on. "You wouldn't be the only one… being strong and thoughtful. Generous. You baked a Death Star cake." He raised his hand to stroke a stray lock of hair off her neck, but remembered her forbidding physical contact.

Amy turned and looked at him, "I baked 2 Death Star cakes. The first one was destroyed by the fact that Bernadette and I forgot to flatten the bottom. And we still had to watch 13 hours and 14 minutes of Star Wars movies. Not to mention that you made us watch 6 hours and 55 minutes of prequels that you admit are utter crap just to get to the "good ones!" she felt the ire rise again and she stood up and paced, "and I couldn't say no because you looked so happy at the thought I would say yes. And I loved you so much and I just wanted you to be happy." She sounded on the verge of tears, "and even now you can't say you love me…"

He grabbed her arm and pulled her so she stood in front of him. "Amy I do love you."

She exploded pushing him back with all her might, "Don't lie! And Don't touch me!" She screamed, tears were now falling freely, "I don't want you back. I will not go back to being that pathetic creature that you just abandoned because you didn't care what your leaving would do to her." She angrily waved her hands in front of her face as if trying to cool the hot rage escaping her skin.

"I am not lying…" he said softly. He wanted to hold her so she would calm down… so he would calm down too… "I love you, Amy. Just believe me."

"Words." Amy sighed, sadly. "I never told you I loved you either. But you knew didn't you?" she asked and he nodded. "How?"

Sheldon frowned and thought for a moment, "I just knew. I felt it, maybe. I don't know."

"I gave you love." She picked up the dissection tray and put it away in her freezer. "I loved you and you knew." She stripped off her unused gloves, shoved them in the pocket of her lab coat. She took the lab coat off and hung it up. She walked back to him as she took her long hair out of the pony tail, "If you loved me, you couldn't have hidden it from me."

"I didn't know that I did… or how much I did." He explained distracted by the honey brown waves in her hair, the fact that he could see down the front of her starched white blouse, to the lacy silver bra beneath it. "Where are your clothes, why is your hair different?" He wanted to kiss her almost as much as he wanted to go back in time and wrap her up in a candy pink cardigan and stare at his own reflection in the sleek, shiny surface of her straight hair.

"I've changed, Dr. Cooper." Amy stepped around him and headed to the door, "If you really want me back and you still fear change, you should be shitting your pants right now."

Warning. In this story, she isn't just going to fall into his arms. Sheldon's going to have to prove that he is worth taking another chance on. Amy had an eventful summer also…