AN: It's not summer without a hiatus fic! As it's about the current hiatus, this story is obviously not part of my 'Shamyverse.' Let me know what you think.

The Perseverance Stratagem

Cats. Sheldon thought a lot about cats the first week. He liked cats. He liked how warm and soft it was to sleep next to one, gently touching its fur that felt like flannel. He like how calm they were when he talked, and he never doubted they are deeply listening as they slowly blinked their green eyes. Yes, sometimes they could be aloof and sometimes they wanted to be alone, but you never doubted that they loved you. Because a cat always came back for your love. Right?

"I was thinking maybe you and I should get a pet," he said one day that week over breakfast. "Not a turtle, though, they bite."

Leonard's spoon stopped half-way to his mouth. "No. We're not starting that again."

"Starting what again?"

"Listen, buddy," Leonard put his spoon down and furrowed his brow, "I know you're upset. But remember last time you got all those cats, what I told you? Even though it's normal to try and fill the hole in your life with something else, it never works."

Sheldon snorted, incredulous. Of course he knew it wouldn't work. As if there were enough cats in the entire world.

"How is Sheldon?"

"Well, there was a scary moment that we thought maybe he was going to start collecting cats again."

Noodles. Noodles pleased Sheldon because of how uniform they were and how they swirled into interesting fractal shapes with the twirl of his fork. Noodles every Friday night with Amy at his side as he twirled. Now he concentrated on finding the one noodle that didn't match: broken, shorter, with its end ragged and poking out from his smooth mathematical food art. So he didn't have to look up, to see Amy in the brown chair next to Leonard. Where she sat now, more quiet than she used to be. But sometimes he could feel her eyes upon him. It hurt too much to look up, so he looked for the broken noodle instead.

" - Sheldon?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry," he jerked back to Leonard's question. "I think that if Claire Dearing wants to fight dinosaurs wearing high heels, that is her choice. She is an intelligent and brave woman with a strong personal fashion sense. I respect that."

"When did you become so knowledgeable about feminism - never mind," Howard said.

Bernadette coughed awkwardly. Raj made on unrelated comment. Amy never looked up. Maybe she was pointlessly looking for meaning in her own broken and ragged noodles, too. So far away from him it physically hurt.

". . . him?"

"Well, you see him every Friday night. Quiet."

Texts. "I am well. Nothing untoward has occurred. I am still on my journey." He knew precisely how many times he had sent that exact message last summer. He remembered with clarity how his fingers ghosted over the keypad at the end, the words i miss you haunting him. Never had he typed them. Now, twice a week, he received "I am well. Nothing untoward has occurred. I am still on my journey." He was being haunted by the ghosts of his past.

It was his ring tone that got his attention, finally. He picked up his phone.

"Dude," Raj's voice said, "I've been trying to text you for like half an hour!"

"Sorry. I've decided texting is just a fad in which I am no longer interested in participating."

i miss you i miss you i miss you i miss you . . . Never once.

"How's Sheldon?"

"You know, weird. He says that someone needs to do research to prove texting is depressing."

Gollum. He was actually a nice chap, when you got to know him. When you sat next to him on a rock in his cave in your dreams. They talked about rings. Gollum warned him about keeping a ring too close, about not letting it perform its designated task. How if you stared at it too long, it would hypnotize you into believing things that weren't true. How the ring would eat you away. You would lose weight, your eyes would get big, your teeth got pointy, until one day you found yourself in a loincloth snatching a fish out of the creek to rip it apart while it was still alive.

"Hey, Sheldon, want to come to dinner with us? You haven't done that in a long time," Penny asked.

"Oh, I suppose," he sighed. He definitely didn't want to get down to loincloth size.

"Good! We're going to try that new sushi restaurant!"

Struck by a wave of nausea, Sheldon ran to the bathroom.

"And Sheldon?"

"He's taken up strange dietary habits. Even for him."

Laughter. Amy's laugh was so different from his, smoother, deeper, with less air. Amy's laugh was more grounded. Oddly, it was more serious. Sometimes, too often, he didn't understand why Amy was laughing. This had annoyed him for months, when they first met. And, then suddenly, he loved it. He loved her laughter long before he realized he loved her. Loved it long before he managed to tell her. It had tugged at him, the laughter, gently but incessantly pulling him toward her, tugging him toward love, toward happiness, toward forever, tugging . . .

The tugging was at his shirt sleeve, too.

"Come on, buddy, you know you shouldn't knock," Leonard said, as they stood outside of Penny's door, Amy's laughter coming in peals from inside that apartment. Sheldon didn't remember walking toward the door, he didn't remember raising his hand.

Slowly, he put his hand down. He nodded and turned around. He felt adrift, and he wanted to be tied down to that grounded laughter.

"Sheldon?"

"Well, you know . . . honestly, like he's floating or something. Leonard said he's been working a lot, maybe too much."

Patience. Amy felt that she had been too patient. He felt she was accusing him of not being patient. That was not true. By the time he had decided, after six weeks, that he needed - no, he wanted - to return home to her, each clack of the train wheels felt slower than the next. It took all of his patience not abandon his journey and fly home. Then, it had ended horribly, and he looked like a failure instead of a returning warrior, riding up on his white horse to her.

Six weeks. He had given her six weeks, just as she had given him. He showed that his patience was a match for hers, he demonstrated how much he respected her. Now he would prove how much he loved her. Sheldon had an Amy-shaped heartache, and he needed to mold it into something else. Heartaches were just the stuff that all the world's great literature was built upon, and Amy loved literature. So he researched all the romantic clichés in so-called chic lit.

For six weeks, he had been living in perseverance. And pain. Now he would take control of his own story arc, he would slowly, carefully, quietly demonstrate his love. Nothing outrageous, that wasn't his style. But he would no longer sit back and wait. He would be proactive. He couldn't bear to miss her any longer. He couldn't bear the silence.

". . . is he?"

"Listen, sweetie, I need to be honest with you. I support you, I really do. Lord knows I could never consider dating Sheldon. But he's lost and he's confused . . . I mean, it's been six weeks! If you've explained anything to him, then he's not said a word about it, even to Leonard. But I don't think you have, have you? And you haven't even explained it to me! I thought you thought he was perfect, right? How can you bear to miss him this long?"

Silence.

To be continued . . .

Thank you in advance for your reviews!