All night long, at least in her dreams, Amy had been hopping in and out of various beds, in various states of undress, never quite arriving at the destination where she wanted to go. Finally she was in the driver's seat, her hands on the steering wheel, speeding across the waves of the dark, desolate ocean with a pygmy goat, who had a pink rose behind his ear, sitting safely strapped into the passenger seat.

Nothing nonsensical about this, she thought, adding for good measure, can you hear me, Howard? Are you still there in my amygdala?

Silence answered. Perhaps he, and everyone else, had been banished for good. Maybe her prefrontal cortex had managed to kick in, somehow.

Suddenly, thoughts bubbled up from various recesses of her brain in a singsong voice, chanting, Banished? Famished! One cake, two cake, three cake, four – all good girls are not a bore! One fish, two fish–STOP IT! Amy yelled from one part of her brain to another, concentrate. No reason to have a Battle of the Amygdala right now, I have better things to do. Such as taking a left turn at that buoy up ahead.

Amy turned the steering wheel, and the taxi made a left over the darkness of the vast ocean. Even more than ever, her heart had a destination in mind. Oddly though, she found that she was no longer in any hurry to get there. She thought of the train conductor and his pocket watch.

"He gave me time," Amy murmured aloud, "plenty of time. His time." She furrowed her brow as she thought about that more, driving by the buoy as it tossed on the waves of the ocean and emitted one lonely, deep peel of its bell. She felt warmth and gratitude welling up inside of her. "He gave me his time," Amy whispers to herself, and even as that realization hit her there was a pulse of white light again, a gentle one. When the light cleared, Amy found herself in her lab.

She sat perched on her usual stool, the dark slate of the lab table before her, a veritable mad scientist collection of Brunson burners, metal stands, and glass beakers all holding fluids of multiple colors in front of her. It seems I'm working through quite the experiment, she thought. The air felt cool and smelled fresh, which wasn't surprising, as her lab had repositioned itself in the midst of a dark forest with thick foliage overhead.

Amy turned to trees and said, "I can't see the forest for the sake of you. Could you please move back and give me some room? I'm working on something important here and I need to think."

All the trees suddenly slouched over grumpily, and some bent their branches and set them moodily on the torso of their trunks. Their leaves rustled out an annoyed complaint, but after having vented their feelings on the matter, they slowly receded backwards, stomping off sulkily. They kicked up clods of dirt in their wake, but the earth resettled itself, appearing undisturbed as it sprouted long soft grass dotted with ox-eyed daisies and clover. Finally, Amy found herself and all of the fixtures of her lab in the epicenter of a round meadow surrounded by tall trees that turned to each other and began jerkily gesturing their branches between each other and then towards her, each movement emoting the sentiment, "can you believe the nerve! What a–"

Amy deliberately turned her back on the trees and averted her eyes to her lab table and apparatus.

It's not the first time I've been talking about behind my back, Amy thought, and it won't be the last. She refocused on her equipment and thoroughly ignored the conniving conifers.

Her lab – her place of power – was precisely as she remembered it. A chemical problem lay assembled before her, waiting to be solved. Thoughtfully, Amy reached out and turned a knob on the apparatus in front of her, causing one vial to slowly drip pink fluid into a little sieve with mesh as delicate as filigree. She measured out powders in spoons and liquids in small eye droppers, and in the hissing flicker of the Brunson burner flames, different chemicals started to bubble and burst, mixing with a fizzle, and slowly one distilled liquid dripped through various vials until a large beaker began to fill up with something thick and purple that smelled floral and sweet.

After taking a deep breath and watching the beaker fill with plum-colored liquid, Amy skeptically, almost reluctantly, looked over at the little goat contentedly grazing on the grass. The goat lifted its head to look back at her, and then came prancing over merrily as if it knew it was wanted. She plucked the pink flower from behind its ear, and took a moment to look into the fresh face of the rose that was still kissed with dew, still fresh and young and innocent.

"The heart," Amy said, plucking two outer petals and placing them into a glass vial. She turned up the heat of a burner, the flame leaping higher with a hiss. Using an eye dropper, Amy added a few drops of sugar water, and then let the confection melt and slowly turn to tiny pink crystals. Amy looked at her watch, and when the fourth hand ticked past the word "Done," she turned down the heat, the flame this time emitting a little hiss of protest.

"I know, you just want to burn all day, don't you? Burn it all," Amy said to the flame, as if she understood.

She picked up a delicate brush, inserted it down the length of the tube, and gently swept the crystals into the large glass master beaker. As the crystals joined the mixture, they turned the purple liquid a vivid shade of fuchsia. Amy tapped the brush twice against the edge of the beaker, and then swirled the mixture with the brush three times counter clockwise for good measure. Just like the Half Blood Prince, she thought to herself. Every detail counts.

Satisfied with the shade of the mixture - she was sure it seemed just right - Amy reached out for the champagne bottle and turned it over, letting a cloud of confetti made of tiny silver Q's fall into the beaker. "All of the doubts" she said, "That come when we question ourselves and the world around us. There are no answers without questions, but sometimes it's okay to let all of it go. Accept the world for what it is. Because it's okay to be foolish sometimes." These, too, melted into the liquid, turning it silver.

She looked to the goat again, and it coughed once and brought up a bright gold watch. Amy took it gently from his mouth and turned it over in her palm again to study it. Her face was reflected in the glass surface, and she smiled slightly back at herself before straightening her spine self-consciously and glancing sidelong at the goat. The goat merely blinked back at her.

Turning the watch over one more time, Amy noted the inscription on the back, a simple engraving of the initials AFF and SLC with the infinity symbol between them. After a pause, she picked up a pair of scissors and a sheet of gold plastic, cutting out a rectangle about the size of a credit card. She took a metal stand and fastened a small vice clip to it. She fastened the rectangle of gold plastic securely in the clip and picked up the watch again. Turning the watch over, she held it aloft and began to wind it, slowly but evenly rotating the dial. Like little grains of salt shifting through a shaker, so do tiny golden flecks float down from the watch, landing on the card and melting into it. Each little fleck emits a tiny note as it does so. What is built to music is therefore build forever, Amy thought as she fell into a reverie. She couldn't be sure quite how long she spent rotating the dial, lost in the song of time, but she knew when she was done. Inspecting her work, she saw that the card was indeed a credit card, emblazoned with his name in raised gold letters, and simply stamped with the number 73. Amy released the card from the vise clamp and dropped it into the beaker. She and the goat watched as their time melted away into the liquid, turning it gold.

"Now," Amy said carefully, clearing her throat, "Cherries." She picked up a wooden bowl and the yellow fruit sitting beside it, adding, "And a banana." The goat made a slightly strangled noise, and Amy added, widening her eyes innocently, "What? It's just for taste!" Amy looked at the goat sidelong, and it looked back at her sternly before snorting and rolling its eyes as if to say, Oh, go on then.

A hedgehog waddled forward on her lab counter, and Amy gave it a stern look. "Did you eat my fishy?" she inquired.

The hedgehog simply burped, the spasm of his body causing a few quills to shake loose.

Amy sighed, "You did eat my fishy. Poor fishy - he had a nightmare about you, you know."

The hedgehog curled up into a ball and rolled away without a word. Amy decided to name him Hogesh Koothraquilly.

Amy picked one up one of the quills the hedgehog left behind and used it to pit the cherries, putting the stones and stems aside. She placed the meat of the fruit into a wide pewter goblet. She peeled the banana, using another quill to split it down the center before adding it to the goblet also. Taking a few vials from their metal stands, Amy splashed the mixture with a dollop of cream and a jigger of brandy. Last of all, Amy picked up a box of matches. With a flick of her wrist she lit one, looking at the goat cheerfully as she announced, "It's like a Jubilee!" She dropped the match into the goblet, and the entire mixture blazed upwards; exploded with a pop of fire and flash of smoke. When it burned down, there was a ruby egg left in the pewter basin. Amy plucked it out, cracked it against the edge of the beaker, using both hands to pull back the delicate shell and allow the golden yoke to fall into the master beaker. It all melted away, leaving a heady aroma.

Last of all, Amy took a yellow balloon, held it over the beaker, and then used a needle to pop it. Whatever came out could not be seen, but the golden liquid turned as bubbly and translucent as champagne. Amy looked at the goat, and then gestured to the beaker with a supple flicker of her wrist. "Helium," she said. The goat stared at the vial in confusion, and then looked up at her with bewilderment. She explained, "Lightness. So we don't take ourselves too seriously." She reached out and stroked the goat's stubbly, coarse hair, saying as she did so, "Laughter will mark the best of times, and get us through the worst of times. It's the most important ingredient of all."

The goat shivered in delight at her touch, and shrugged his haunches in apparent agreement, even as he ducked his chin with a hint of bashful delight. "What's life without whimsy?" he said in a voice that was suspiciously devoid of its former bleating edge. In fact, it sounded rather like a voice that Amy knows well, a voice Amy knew better than any other in the world. She'd know it anywhere.

She blinked a few times, and looked at the goat more clearly, opening her mouth to protest. The goat looked up at her sternly and said in that same voice, "Oh come on, Amy. You've known who I am all this time."

"Yes," Amy agreed, assuming a practical air, shrugging her shoulders as she conceded he was right. "I suppose that I did. Are you ready?"

"Affirmative," the goat responded, and Amy lifted the glass beaker and shook it, the liquid within frothing and then settling into a pale lavender shade that sparkled with bubbles. She poured out two vials, clinked them together herself, reasoning that the poor goat had no opposable thumbs and thus could not partake in congratulatory toasts. She held the vial out to the goat, who simply swallowed it whole as Amy shotgunned her own.

Down the hatch, Amy thought to herself. For better or worse.

Almost immediately her whole body tingled and she began to grow. This hurts, Amy thought, this hurts like a mother. She swore she could feel her very bones growing longer and thicker, feel the hair push violently through each pore in her head like a million tiny pin pricks, and her skin pulled tighter and multiplied into millions of new cells all at once. Just as she always remembered, it ached to grow up, ached in her very bones, ached within her very heart, ached deep in the recesses of her mind and soul, but there was never any way to turn back. It wasn't long before she and Sheldon were sitting beside each other in the meadow. Or more like on the meadow. Amy had her arms wrapped around her knees; he leaned back against a mountain range, shading his eyes as he looked up at a sun it seemed he could easily and pluck from the sky if only he would reach out his hand and take it.

A pair of giants, colossal figures, sprawled across a mountain range as it they were simply at home on the couch. Above them spun the starry expanse of the galaxy in all its milky wonder and sparkle.

"Thank you," Amy said simply to Sheldon, even as her eyes survey the earth from this high angle, taking in the sight of the landscape that stretches out from her feet. She curled up her toes away from the edge of the trees in consideration. No need to make them any angrier with her, she reasoned.

"You're welcome," Sheldon replied, turning his eyes from the heavens to look at her. After a moment to think over their conversation, he frowned and inquired, "Wait. Thank you for what?"

For a long time Amy was quiet, formulating her thoughts. Finally, she looked at Sheldon and said seriously, "Sheldon, do you remember our anniversary, when you quoted Spiderman and talked about the kind of man you wanted to become?"

Sheldon nodded back to her hesitantly, and Amy plunged on, the words tumbling out of her: "I love you," she said, "I wish I had told you that I loved you then – love you completely; heart, body, and soul. You think I just love you for your mind, but that's not true, that's not all it is anymore. I love your heart, which is loving and kind despite all of your selfishness, and I love your soul, which quests through the mysteries of space and time, always seeking out the truth." She took a deep breath, nearly shaking, but the crisp cold air of the mountain range seemed to calm her, so she continued, very gently, "I love your body, too. I want it – eventually. Someday I hope you desire me like that as well. But I know that you're not ready for that yet – I don't know if I'm even ready for that yet. But I have faith that someday you will be," she paused, and then said quietly, "that we will be. We'll put our heart into it, and we won't question it, and we'll give it time and eventually…we'll grow into whatever we're meant to be, into the greatness of our potential. We'll prevent nothing, because nothing will come between us. We'll allow everything, for everything will happen between us in its proper time. I don't know precisely what will happen, or when, or how, but I'm ready for anything, as long as I'm with you."

Sheldon sat staring at her in his intense and focused way, but he said nothing.

After a very long pause, Amy added more tentatively still, "One day you're going to realize that you have so much more to offer than just your mind, and when you do, I'll be ready. I promise you that."

Amy and Sheldon sat in the sunshine, their backs up against the sky, staring at each other for a long moment. Tentatively, Sheldon reached out to enfold her hand in his, and they stayed that way for what seemed minutes, or hours, or perhaps an eternity, but within the moment Amy felt belonging, and love, and safety, and a sense of peace.

It was the best sleep she'd ever gotten.

When her eyes fluttered open, the room was quiet and still, the light weak and feeble. She'd woken up before the alarm clock, and rolled on her side to turn it off. She picked up her glasses from the bedside table and slipped them on as she happily pushed her feet out of the covers and wiggled her toes before placing them on the rug. Rising, she stretched and smiled to herself, feeling more alive than she ever had, as if she was glowing from the inside out, and she had figured out the secret of the meaning of life to boot. Parts of the dream stuck with her, and she looked around for her cellphone. Amy wanted to tell him all about it, tell him about her epiphany, tell him everything she'd learned and that she felt. She couldn't wait to share it with him.

Amy's stomach gave a low rumble, and she remembered that she left her cellphone out on the coffee table, meaning she forgot to plug it in to charge over night. She rushed into the living room and snatched her phone off the table, finding that it was, indeed, dead to the world. She took it into the kitchen and plugged it in by its cord, and then turned to open the fridge. Perhaps she'd tell Sheldon all of the details of her dream after a good, healthy breakfast. Her stomach gurgled again, and she began rooting around in her fridge, pushing aside several bottles of Yoo Hoo.

She'd never had a more persistent craving for bacon in her life.

Amy stood in her kitchen, up to her elbows in soapy water, with the frying pan in one hand and sponge in the other. She scrubbed away at the grease left over, and wondered if Sheldon wanted to go to the zoo today. It had been awhile since she'd seen his koala face, she realized. The thought of it made her smile, and mentally she made a note to text him in a minute, when she was done with the dishes.

There was something else she was going to tell him, Amy remembered. She paused, squeezing the sponge in her hand. The water squelched out between her fingers and dropped into the sink, bleeding away just like the memories of her dream.

What did she dream about again? Amy wondered. She thought it was something important when she woke up, but now she couldn't remember much about it except a dancing hippo slapping her on the nose with a magic wand. Magic wand, she marvelled to herself, obviously it's better if I just forget about all of that nonsense.

Suddenly, Amy spun around to look behind her, alarmed by the sudden notion that all of her friends were in the apartment and that they could hear what she was thinking. When you think inside of your amygdala, your amygdala can still hear you, she thought to herself as her heart thudded in her chest. She tiptoed out of the kitchen, and checked through her apartment for interlopers, finally emerging from her bathroom with a perplexed expression on her face as she wandered back into the kitchen.

Amy shook her head and loaded the dishes into the washer. Get a hold of yourself, Amy Farrah Fowler, she thought. It was time to focus on more practical matters.

And with that, Amy began planning out her day.

Across town, in a sleeping mind, a ravishing, petite brunette, dressed in a demure floral dress and unbuttoned green cardigan, kept parading up and down in someone else's dream.

"She's the soul of the femme fatale in florals," he muttered to himself, unable to keep the begrudging admiration out of his tone. Propping his elbow on the arm of the couch and fanning his face with his hand, he turned to the chair beside him and noted, "really gets your heart rate going, doesn't it, Leonard?"

However, his bespeckled friend was not there. Instead, a tiny plastic figure, dressed in a blue Star Trek uniform, sat on the edge of the cushion, staring back at him with an unblinking, disconcerting gaze.

"Fascinating," Spock's voice echoed through the vaults of his mind. Disturbed, that mind woke suddenly, the doll's penetrating stare making him jerk straight up in bed, yelping out in desperation, "KHOLINAR!"

He took several deep breaths, panting desperately, eyes wide as his gaze swept the room for possible danger. Finding none, he exhaled and tried to reason his mind into relaxation. He reached for his cellphone in order to bid her good morning, muttering under his breath, "One of these days I'm going to figure out just precisely what that vixen has done to me, and when I do, oh yes, when I do..." He stopped, then continued on lamely, "Er, when I do..." His thumbs stop typing up his morning greeting to her as he tries to find a way to end that train of thought.

Well, Sheldon reasoned, vaguely uncomfortable with with the sense that he had no idea what he was talking about, I'll figure it out. Eventually. I'm super smart - just give me time. Eventually I'm going to figure it out.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you all allowing me the time to finish this particular train wreck. Now I can finally move on to what's hopefully bigger and better. Reviewing seems to be a dying art, so I greatly appreciate those of you who take the time to lend me your thoughts. Thanks again for making this a fun journey - I'll see you all again if Amy ever dares to have another REM cycle ever again.

Although I've been told since publishing this story that people are intrigued by Sheldon's dream. Perhaps the next 7 chapters will belong to him, and what goes on in the Beautiful Mind of Sheldon Lee Cooper. We'll see. I'll think about it. Just give me time.