THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION

Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.

Notes: Well, this is it—what can I say except thanks to everyone who stuck with the story this long, and made my return to fanfic as much unexpected pleasure as it was? I'd particularly like to thank the reviewers bamadude, 123justafan, SRAM, joann4172 and Junior VB, whose regular replies kept my enthusiasm for the story going—as well as the nameless guest reviewer whose only comment was a page's worth of copied-and-pasted "PLEASE UPDATE SOON", and FactsoverFantasy who supplied a needed kick in the butt at the right moment. In keeping with the atmosphere of all good superhero stories, make sure you don't stop reading after the closing credits!

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.

- 22 -

2311 NORTH LOS ROBLES AVENUE, #4A, PASADENA

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2015, 4:14 P.M.

If marriage meant the end of sex, Penny thought, drifting in a pleasant haze of afterglow amid the piled wreckage of Leonard's bedsheets, it evidently took a little while to kick in. She decided she was extremely grateful for that fact as Leonard caressed the long muscles of her back and sides, spiraling his fingers lightly over all the curves he could reach. Penny hummed in languid, exhausted pleasure. "You keep doing that," she warned him sleepily, "and I'm gonna think you mean business."

"Oh, you think I don't?" Leonard murmured.

"I think you should be careful about starting something you might not be able to finish."

"Mm, you're probably right. You want me to stop?"

"I didn't say that." Penny snickered and wound herself closer, letting out a deep breath of satisfaction. "God, I wish we could just stay here forever. Screw being a superhero, I just wanna have a honeymoon like any other bride."

"Well, we have a fair bit of money coming to us, thanks to the contract Bernadette worked out," pointed out Leonard. "We could go anywhere we like. New Orleans, Walt Disney World . . . London, Paris, New Zealand . . . ."

Penny frowned at him. "Why do you want to go to New Zealand?"

"That's where Peter Jackson filmed the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies." Leonard rolled over on his side to face her, gesturing enthusiastically. "It's all this beautiful green landscape, and they've turned Hobbiton into this tour resort destination now; I think you can actually stay in a hotel that's designed like Bag End!"

"So I can bang my head on the ceiling like Ian McKellen did? No thanks." Penny shook her head.

"I don't think the ceiling is that low in real life," said Leonard patronizingly.

"How would you know? You're practically hobbit-size yourself," Penny shot back. Leonard's eyebrows went up, and she bit her lip. "Okay, that was over the line. Sorry."

"Eh." Leonard shrugged. "After that sex, not to mention the whole marrying me thing, I think I can stand to cut you a little slack." He blew on his fingernails and buffed them on his chest.

"Oh thank you very much." She settled back into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. "And for what it's worth," she added, "not all of you is hobbit-sized." She could somehow feel his grin through his skin, and chuckled into his neck.

After a moment she looked up at him curiously. "Hey. Answer me something—why doesn't my superstrength kick in when we're doin' it? I was holding onto your bedframe pretty hard there at one point, and I remember thinking that the last time I did something like that I broke Mrs. Cooper's hardwood table."

"Well, you did knock a bunch of my toys over," said Leonard, nodding at the bedside table.

"Actually, I think that was you who knocked them over," Penny countered. "You were the one supplying all the inertial momentum, after all." She sniggered at his obvious delight. "Hey, I told you I learned stuff listening to you."

"Yeah, but it's still so amazingly hot listening to you say it," Leonard murmured. He glanced over at the mess of props, toys and knickknacks scattered on the bedside table and the floor below it. "Man, if I knew I didn't need any of those toys to have this much fun I'd never have . . . ." Penny gave him a look, and he cleared his throat. "No, I'd probably still have gotten them," he admitted.

"Well, toys can add to the fun," Penny pointed out. "Not those toys, but . . . oh, you're not seriously tidying up now, are you?" she complained, as Leonard sat up, swung his feet over, leaned down and began picking things up. "We're only gonna knock all of them over again in half an hour anyway."

"Sorry," said Leonard. "Force of habit. You can thank my mother for that, among other things."

"Yeah, gettin' right in line to do that." Penny snorted and lay back. "What do you think happened?" she asked after a moment. "With your mother? I thought your power was, like, telemawhatsis or whatever, and it's Sheldon who does the whooshy-jumpy stuff."

"Telekinesis," corrected Leonard automatically. "And I don't know, really. There's still a lot we don't know. But I think it probably has to do with your state of mind. Your superstrength doesn't kick in during sex, maybe, because the hormones put your brain into a state of vulnerability and openness, so it thinks it doesn't need the power. Sheldon controls space and time because that's how his brain's always worked: he's always wanted to understand the structure of the universe, and now . . . he does."

"And now he can see the future as well? Is that what all those end-of-the-world dreams were about?" Leonard had told her about Sheldon's dreams that afternoon, after they'd all signed the contract; even now, remembering it gave her a chill. Penny had always loved going to fortune-tellers—part of the reason she'd hated fighting about it with Leonard so much was that it was one of the only times she'd ever got the impression he meant to make her feel stupid—but she had to admit, in hindsight, that that might have had a lot to do with the fact they tended to give her pretty positive messages. And on the rare occasions they didn't, she'd usually written it off by telling herself they couldn't always be right. Sheldon's nightmares were a whole different world of freaky. "'Cause I gotta tell you, Leonard, if the world goes kaboom before we can even finish our honeymoon, I am gonna be seriously pissed."

Leonard shook his head. "Even if Sheldon's seeing something that might actually happen, I don't believe in predestination. If you can see a future you can change it. And I've got too much to live for now." He grinned at her, and she felt herself melting. "Besides, given how my brain seems to work, a crisis might be just what I need to figure out exactly how to use my power. Whatever it is."

"How do you mean?" Penny tilted her head at him.

"Well, like I said to my mother, all I know so far is that for things to happen, it seems I have to be emotionally overwhelmed—so worked up that I forget to be indecisive, or uncertain." He shrugged, turning the last of the fallen toys over and over in his hand. It glittered in the dimness of the bedroom; they'd pulled the shades as soon as they'd tumbled in, already ripping each other's clothes off. "Like this morning; all I remember thinking was that the only thing I really wanted was for Mom to just . . . go away. And presto change-o, she did."

"Not such a bad power," said Penny, clambering up to rest her chin on his shoulder from behind. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Yeah, until I really lose my temper with someone and want to put them into the cornfield."

Was that a Nebraska dig? Penny decided she felt too good to bother about it. "Well, we'll worry about that later. Besides, anybody who gets you, Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, the sweetest guy I know, that mad probably deserves it." She grinned and kissed him, then looked down at the object in his hands. "Hey, what is that, anyway?"

"Oh! I'm appalled you don't recognize this, Mrs. Hofstadter," said Leonard, in his plummiest mock-offended tones. "You were the one who came up with marriage vows from the movie this was in." He held the object up; it was an ornately carved crystal bottle, full of transparent liquid in which clouds of glittery sparkles floated.

"Did I?" Penny frowned and finally teased the memory out. "Oh, right, that's the whatsit from Lord of the Rings. The elvish thingy that lights up."

"'The elvish thingy that lights up'?" repeated Leonard, sounding even more mock-offended. He shook the bottle. "This is the light of Eärendil, the Elves' most beloved star, a light in dark places when all others go out—!"

"Yeah yeah yeah, I remember you bragging about scoring that for twenty bucks on eBay, Leonard." She squinted down at it. "This thing doesn't actually light up, does it? Like your plastic lightsaber?"

Leonard laughed. "No, it's not quite that tacky," he said, dropping the affected outrage. "Electronics and liquid don't mix all that well. Be cool if they did, though. Actually, what they should've done is put a cheap sound trigger in it, so it could light up whenever anybody says—" He turned to face her, brandished the bottle dramatically and declaimed, "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!"

The bottle burst into light, a cool white glittering radiance that lit up the entire room. Both Leonard's and Penny's faces shone like cartoon masks of flabbergasted astonishment for an instant, before both of them yelled aloud and Leonard dropped the bottle. Its light went out the instant it left his hand and thumped onto the mattress, suddenly no more than a cheap prop again. The two of them stared at it together.

"What . . . the . . . hell?!" managed Leonard after a moment.

"Oh my God." Suddenly, it all made sense. Penny couldn't believe she'd gotten this before Leonard, of all people. Then again, he was a little close to the subject, after all, not to mention being a relentlessly logical sort for which this kind of idea wouldn't naturally occur—he hadn't even believed in psychics before two days ago. And he'd just had a lot of sex, too; in her experience most guys operated at considerably subpar brainpower after that. She bit back her urge to shout the answer, wanting to make absolutely sure first. "Leonard. Do that again, just exactly as you did, saying the same words. Go."

Hesitantly, Leonard picked up the bottle again. "Um—Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima," he mumbled. Nothing happened.

Penny gestured impatiently. "No, no, not like that, like you did it the first time. Really mean it. Put your heart into it! You are Frodo! You're the hero of the Shire! Now come on! Again!"

Leonard took a deep breath. "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima," he said again, more firmly. Light flickered in the depth of the bottle; he gasped. Penny clenched her fists gleefully and nodded, giving him a spinning-hand Again! gesture. Leonard held the bottle higher. "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!" he said, and the light flickered again, growing brighter. "Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!" This time it was a shout; a sudden weird, eerie resonance echoed in his voice, and the bottle became a searing, almost blinding light, painting their shadows starkly on the bed and the wall. Leonard lowered the bottle, gaping at it.

"How did you know?" he whispered.

"Oh, come on!" Penny grinned in exasperation. "After you made me watch all the Harry Potter movies with you, and got me hooked on the books? All those stories about people who make weird stuff happen without meaning to, but which gets them what they really want anyway? Stuff that only works when you really mean it?" She lowered her voice to the gravelliest register she could and did her best Northern English accent, remembering Robbie Coltrane in the movie. "Yer a wizard, Leonard!"

Mouth open, Leonard stared at her. Penny couldn't resist providing the next line, and gave his shoulder a mischievous push. "And a thumpin' good 'un too, I'll wager, once yeh're trained up a little."

Leonard blinked, slowly closing his mouth. "I am never," he said, "going to believe you when you say you don't pay attention to the stuff I like. Ever again."

"Oh, give me a break," Penny protested. "I told you I liked Game of Thrones on my own, didn't I? 'Cause it's got dragons and people doin' it, remember—aaahhh!" She shrieked in a gleeful giggle as Leonard flung himself on her; the light went out again as he dropped the bottle. For a few minutes there was nothing except wordless noises and rolling movements. Finally Leonard stilled, looking down at her with such unbelieveable tenderness that Penny felt like every organ inside her was melting.

"You are, quite literally, the most magical thing that's ever happened to me," he said softly.

Penny cleared her throat, her vision blurry. "Yeah, well. Considering we're probably gonna have to spend the rest of our lives saving the world together, that's all for the best, right?" She gulped, wrapping her arms and legs around him. "I love you, baby. Don't ever doubt that."

"I don't. I won't. Ever." He bent his mouth to hers once more, and Penny let herself dissolve into him, into this wonderful, magical man. Her husband. She still couldn't believe it was all real. God, she thought, please don't let this all be a dream, please don't—

knockknockknock "Leonard and Penny?" knockknockknock "Leonard and Penny?" knockknockknock "Leonard and Penny?"

Both of them froze. Together, they turned their heads slowly to face the bedroom door. "Oh, my God," Leonard breathed. "This is all just a nightmare, isn't it?"

"No," Penny groaned. "No, this has gotta be real, 'cause not even in my worst nightmares would I dream this up." She raised her voice. "Sheldon, this had better be freaking important!"

"Oh, believe me," said Sheldon through the bedroom door, "I wouldn't interrupt your wedding-night—well, wedding-afternoon—coitus for anything short of an absolute emergency. But this is something that really has to be addressed as soon as humanly possible." To his credit, he did sound distinctly disturbed. Penny exchanged a concerned look with Leonard. Maybe something serious was wrong.

"What's the problem, Sheldon?" Leonard called.

"I need you both to tell Amy that your wedding today doesn't count."

4:27 P.M.

There was a long pause from the other side of the door. Finally: "Excuse me?" Leonard called back.

Sheldon sighed. Whatever the Power Pulse had done for Leonard, it clearly hadn't enhanced his basic thinking capacity—though he supposed that the excessive coitus he and Penny had probably been having might have contributed to this slowness of comprehension. He wished people weren't so hung up on the irrational privacy demands of their erotic activity; it was annoying having to explain this through a door.

"At least as far as catching the bridal bouquet goes," he clarified. "You see, although I was aware of the traditional superstitious meaning of that action, I hadn't connected it until just now with Amy's eagerness to successfully accomplish it, until she explained it to me a few minutes ago while we were, uh . . . confirming our mutual affection. Purely verbally, of course!" he added hastily. Odd: now he was grateful for the door, as it hid the tics he still had a hard time concealing when stating a falsehood.

All solely for Amy's sake, of course, he told himself firmly. It wasn't like he felt any embarrassment over the admittedly surprising shift in his perceptions and priorities, when it came to erotic activity; but Amy, he was sure, wouldn't want him boasting to Leonard like some thickheaded jock in a locker room. However much he might want to so boast, or however much he rather looked forward to proving to Amy that he could be as capable at physical gratification as he was at any other skill he cared to master . . . .

What was he talking about, again? Oh, right. Another oddity: he'd expected resolving his relationship issues with Amy would stop his mind wandering to her. "And although Amy immediately reassured me that she isn't expecting a proposal simply because of happening to comply with an arbitrary social custom, I'm well aware that the female brain tends to operate a little more irrationally than the male, which leads me to conclude that on an emotional level she does have such an expectation, even if she herself is not consciously aware of it or is doing her best to resist it.

"Now of course I'm not opposed in principle to the idea of eventually marrying Amy, Leonard, as you know, but I'd prefer that be a mutual decision for both of us, and not something influenced by the subconscious urges triggered through ambient social conditioning. So in the interest of mitigating those urges, Leonard, I'd like you and Penny at some point to tell Amy that this particular wedding doesn't count as the 'real' one, so that her subconscious will internalize the idea that nothing done as part of its rituals really counts. If it helps," he suggested, "tell her that it means she'll get another chance to play Maid of Honour, when you do carry out the 'real' wedding; she really loved doing that, you know." He paused, waiting for a response. "Leonard? Penny?"

No answer. He frowned. Did he have to knock again? No; they'd acknowledged the signal, that was all that was needed for social protocol. He pushed Leonard's bedroom door open, walked in, and blinked.

The room was empty. Penny's and Leonard's clothes were scattered along the floor between door and bed, and the bed itself had been left in a rucked chaotic mess; Leonard's Phial of Galadriel lay abandoned on the mattress. The window was open, its drapes fluttering in the warm fall breeze. Sheldon scowled, already certain what had happened. A quick look in the closet confirmed it: Leonard's robe, and Penny's spare robe which she'd been keeping here for months, were both gone.

He put his hands on his hips. "Well, that's just rude," he huffed, annoyed. He went to the window and, mostly for the principle of the thing, yelled up at the empty sky, "You know, flying without adequate thermal protection is a great way to catch pneumonia!" He slammed the window closed, opened a contiguity back to Amy's apartment—with luck, she was still waiting in her bedroom—and hurried through it, assiduously convincing himself it was politeness and not eagerness that impelled his steps. The contiguity closed behind him.

4:28 P.M.

Two floors above, Penny and Leonard peered over the roof's edge down at Leonard's window, desperately stifling their giggles at Sheldon's annoyed yell. Then the slam of the window frame came up to them, and Leonard's jaw dropped. "That crazy petty bastard!" he growled. "He locked us out!"

"Oh, no," Penny deadpanned. "Trapped alone on a roof with a gorgeous blonde wearing only a dressing gown. What are you going to do?"

Leonard raised an eyebrow at her. "Much as I like the idea, most of this rooftop is gravel, hon. We'd be picking grit out of our butts for a week."

Penny stirred the gravel with her foot and nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, actually, you might be right. Tell you what." Her naughty grin, the one Leonard loved so much, broke over her face; she shrugged off her robe, let it fall to the rooftop, then lifted hovering into the air and held out her hand. "What do you think, Dr. Hofstadter? Feel like being the first person in history to join the Mile High Club without needing an airplane washroom?"

"Actually, I read about this husband-wife team of skydivers who apparently tried—uh, yes, yes, of course, absolutely dear," he corrected himself at her glare, and reached up to her. She laughed, whipped his own robe off him, and caught him around his waist. Together, the two of them shot into the sky, disappearing into the rich afternoon sunlight.

CLOSING CREDITS

CAST

Leonard Hofstadter . . . . . . . . . . . . . JOHNNY GALECKI

Sheldon Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JIM PARSONS

Penny Carmichaels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KALEY CUOCO

Howard Wolowitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SIMON HELBERG

Rajesh Koothrappali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KUNAL NAYYAR

Amy Farrah Fowler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MAYIM BIALIK

Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz - MELISSA RAUCH

Lucy Armbruster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KATE MICUCCI

Emily Sweeney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LAURA SPENCER

President Gene Siebert . . . . . . . . . . . JOSHUA MALINA

Kurt Winters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRIAN PATRICK WADE

Stuart Bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KEVIN SUSSMAN

Barry Kripke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JOHN ROSS BOWIE

Leslie Winkle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SARA GILBERT

Agent Angela Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ELIZA DUSHKU

Agent Nick Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . AARON ASHMORE

Dr. Glenn Foxworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RICK FOX

Mary Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LAURIE METCALF

Laura Latham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JESSICA WALTER

Rassiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LORNE CARDINAL

Breanna Locke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIOLA DAVIS

Reverend Tomlinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TROY EVANS

Donny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADAM DEVINE

Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICHAEL CHIKLIS

Sammy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KEVIN J. O'CONNOR

Dmitri Rozokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JASON ALEXANDER

Michaela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JODI-LYN O'KEEFE

Sean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEMORE BARNES

Pyotr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ENVER GYOKAJ

Sgt. Max Abrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICHAEL CUDLITZ

Officer Davies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TARA SPENCER-NAIRN

Hal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TOM HIDDLESTON

Randall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JOHN PYPER-FERGUSON

Director Jerome Belasco . . . . . . . . . . KEVIN CHAPMAN

Senator Richard Thorpe . . . . . . . . . KELSEY GRAMMER

Althea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VERNÉE WATSON

Beverly Hofstadter . . . . . . . . . . CHRISTINE BARANSKI

Priya Koothrappali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AARTI MANN

Alfred Hofstadter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUDD HIRSCH

Nicola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JULIA LING

Wyatt Carmichaels . . . . . . . . . . . . . KEITH CARRADINE

Susan Carmichaels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KATEY SAGAL

Written by STEPHEN TANNHAUSER

Directed by YOUR IMAGINATION

THE BIG BANG THEORY

created by

CHUCK LORRE and BILL PRADY

(C) 2007 Chuck Lorre Productions

THE COMIC CENTER OF PASADENA, EAST GREEN STREET, PASADENA, CA

11:37 P.M.

Stuart leant against the lamppost outside the comic book store, looking up at it, his arms folded. This late at night the street was almost completely empty.

How many years of his life had gone into that building? he wondered idly. How many comic ideas of his own had he started sketching out, and abandoned when he realized he'd gotten bored with the story or couldn't think of how to finish it? How many times had he seriously considered ending it all, only stopped by the thought of being unable to stand not knowing what people would do with this shop? How many nights lying awake in the back room on a filthy, trash-rescued mattress, staring into the dark and breathing the stench of dust and mildewed paper, wondering if things would ever turn around?

Well, things had improved somewhat, he had to admit reluctantly. Or at least they'd appeared to, at the time. But looking back now on even the best of those moments, it was difficult to find any happiness in them. Not knowing what he knew now. Not seeing what he'd seen. He wasn't even sure he ever wanted to go back into that store again.

Somewhere inside his skull he felt the same cold fire he'd picked up lurking in the corner of Agent Page's brain, like a jagged diamond wrapped in blood-slick cobweb and set aflame with whisky. In Page's brain it had been a tissue-thin phantasm, but this was the source itself, bright and hard . . . and coming nearer. Unlike almost every other mind he'd touched, he couldn't hear any thoughts in this one; the power, the hunger, were too fierce. He drew into himself, focusing. He was pretty sure he could penetrate those defenses, if he had to, but it might take a lethal second too long.

The figure materialized out of the darkened part of the street, stopping just where the edge of the streetlight's illumination began. It was tall and slender, hair spilling down over the shoulders of a tan-coloured Burberry raincoat that looked like it cost more than Stuart made. The girl's face was hidden in shadow, but Stuart's art school training had given him an eye for build and proportion, and he had every lonely geek's memory for beautiful women—even if Raj had only brought her to the store once or twice. He cleared his throat. "Hello, Emily."

The girl chuckled, low in her throat, and stepped forward, revealing Emily Sweeney's dark red hair and big brown eyes; and if there was a strange glitter to those eyes now, who would have explained that as anything but oddly reflected lamplight? "Hi, Stuart," she said. "Long time no see. Tell me, is there something different about you?"

Stuart gave a lopsided smile. "Look, if you're trying to, you know, intimidate me, I'll spare you the trouble up front: I'm scared. You were real thorough blocking out what you did to Agent Page, but . . . I was able to pull those memories up, after some work." It had helped that he had instinctively wiped the memories of the nurses whose minds had been the first he read after waking up, realizing in terror what their freaked-out reaction would mean. He hadn't read decades' worth of X-Men comics for nothing. "So I, I know what you are—"

"No, I don't think you do." Emily didn't seem to do anything but take a few casual steps, but suddenly, with feline grace, she was less than a yard away. Her eyes were abruptly huge and glowing, lovely as a warm fire on a cold night, and Stuart was painfully aware of her body and its curves almost close enough to touch. "I don't think you have the first clue as to what we are, Stuart. Yeah, I said we. So I think before you start getting ideas, I should show you—"

The assault might have swept him under if he hadn't had that vital second of preparation, but Emily hadn't read nearly as many comic books as he had, and didn't realize she'd made the classic mistake of the warning gloat. Stuart shored up his shields, caught the jaws of the closing psychic beartrap on his will, held it for a second and then threw it back. Shocked, Emily stumbled backwards. Not giving her time to recover, Stuart followed up with three lightning-quick blasts of his own, stabs at the long nerves along the spinal cord; the last one broke through Emily's will and struck home. With a shriek of horrified surprise, Emily's legs collapsed under her, and she fell to the pavement. Stuart stepped back, summoning his willpower to strike again—

"Kurt!" Emily screamed. Startled, Stuart whipped around, just in time to see the big bald man charging at him and to avoid the hammering punch that would almost certainly have broken his neck; he twisted aside just far enough to take it on his shoulder rather than anywhere more vital. It still broke his collarbone—he could hear it go, with a sickening snap—and sent him flying nearly ten yards down the street. He landed on his injured shoulder and pain obliterated his mind. By the time he recovered any awareness, the big man—Kurt—was standing over him, with his boot pressed hard on his neck, glaring down with eyes capable of murder. Stuart almost lost control of his bladder, cursing himself. Emily must have deliberately distracted him so Kurt could get close without being sensed.

"Where's your fancy mind tricks now, huh, you little geek?" the man rumbled. Stuart could barely breathe. Kurt's mouth twisted in a snarl. "Yeah, you think you're so smart. You all do. Smart enough to fool some dumb bitch doesn't know any better, but not smart enough to fool me. Not smart enough to—"

Holy God, this asshole had made the same mistake as Emily. And a worse one, as well; he'd made Stuart mad. Stuart smashed his way in through those tiny blazing eyes and slammed the man's brain into a deep delta-wave state. Kurt froze in mid-word; his eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the pavement, breathing slow and deep with a vague smile on his face. Coughing painfully, Stuart got to his feet—it was a slower process than usual with only one working arm—then turned to glare at Emily.

She met him glare for glare, but didn't try to move. That could be just a trick, he knew. He had no idea how long what he'd done to her nervous system would last. And this was not how he'd wanted things to go anyway. "Okay," he husked, voice raw with pain. "We've done the obligatory head-butting. We've proven we can hurt each other if we catch us by surprise, and I think we've also just made it a lot harder for either of us to catch the other by surprise. How about I just ask what you want? Besides, you know, the obvious."

Emily narrowed her eyes. "Does that turn you on? Thinking about me doing the 'obvious'?"

Stuart lifted his working hand. "Lady, you are deeply hot, but you're really, really dangerous. Which in itself I think I can handle now, but you're also bat-crap crazy. But at least I know where I stand with you, and you know where you stand with me. And right now that's the best relationship I have in my life. So I don't see any reason why we can't make it a productive one."

Emily tilted her head. "Your friends," she said after a beat. "Raj's friends. You looked inside their heads, didn't you? You looked, and you didn't like what you found at all. Am I right?"

For some reason the throbbing physical agony of Stuart's broken shoulder seemed strangely distant. The wrenching feeling in his chest, his stomach, his head—that was worse. "I knew," he got out through a thickness in his throat, "they all felt sorry for me. I knew they kind of treated me like the pathetic kid brother you let tag along out of sympathy. I knew they all thought, deep down, that they were better than I was, even if maybe they didn't realize it themselves." He drew in a ragged breath. "But there's a difference between knowing . . . and knowing." With his good hand, he touched his temple, and without thinking about it, looked at Emily. Their eyes met.

The second it happened, he knew the contact could have been the last mistake he would ever make . . . but it didn't work out that way. Something—clicked—between them. A recognition of common pain. A deep and lifelong fury at being treated as not important enough; at realizing, no matter how hard you tried, you were never going to come in more than second best. A hunger for adoration so fierce it burned through all those mundane moral mores, showed them for the tissue paper they were. It was not telepathy, so much, as instant mutual understanding . . . and maybe something more.

Startled, Stuart pulled back, breaking the contact. Emily blinked at him. Then, slowly, her mouth curved into the seductive smile again—but something was different about it. As if she'd never had any problem at all, she got back to her feet, stepped over to him, and knelt down. Her lips were soft against his temple . . . then his ear . . . then his cheek. Stuart's heart thundered. At last, her mouth met his, butterfly-delicate. The kiss might have lasted for years, he couldn't tell.

Then, suddenly, she was upright, Kurt's limp body flung over her shoulder; she carried the big man as easily as she might a CPR dummy. She smiled warmly down at Stuart. "Go see your friend Bernadette," she said. "I'd think of a story to tell her about how you broke that shoulder. I could fix it myself, now . . . but I don't think you'd like my method. It has—costs."

Stuart moistened his lips. More than just his shoulder was throbbing painfully now; he didn't think he could quite get up just yet. "So, are we . . . friends, now? 'Cause as friendzones go this is . . . definitely more interesting than most."

Emily shook her head. Her eyes were bright. "Oh, we're not friends, Stuart. But we are definitely not enemies, either. And I think there are lots of things we can help each other achieve. You may or may not believe this . . . but I'm actually really looking forward to seeing you again."

Well, that was something no girl had ever said to him. Even one who drank blood and whammied your mind. Behind his shields, he wondered if he should bring holy water to the next meeting. But he managed to find a smile. "I'd . . . really like that, Emily." What came out next shocked even him. "And if you'd be interested in dinner sometime—I could donate a little."

Their eyes locked again. This time, what passed between them was something entirely physical. Emily licked her lips, and took a shuddering breath. "You'd better not say that and not mean it," she whispered.

"I think you can tell what I do and don't mean, by now," Stuart said quietly.

The pain in his shoulder was growing again; he had to close his eyes and rest against the lamppost for a moment. When he opened his eyes, both Emily and Kurt were gone, as if they'd never existed. But a small pasteboard card lay on the pavement. Moving slowly, Stuart bent to pick it up. All it contained was a single telephone number—no name, no address, no logo. Just the number.

Slowly, almost against his will, Stuart smiled. He tucked the card into his pocket and began stumbling towards the nearest bus stop, planning out the route back to Howard's and Bernadette's place. "Jenny, I got your number," he found himself singing, under his breath, despite the quite astonishing pain that made his breath unsteady. "I wanna make you mine; Jenny, don't change your number: Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-niiiine . . . eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-niiine . . . ."

Limping, he vanished into the dark.

The Big Bang Metahumans will return in

THE METAHUMAN DIVARICATIONS

and

THE METAHUMAN APOTHEOSIS