FIC: Take Me Out to the Black | BBT Big Bang (2/2)
Title: Take Me Out to the Black
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~17k
Disclaimer: BBT isn’t mine, etc. (And neither are Firefly or Star Trek, which this draws from.)
Summary: Space!AU. Sheldon just solved the equation for faster than light travel. Unfortunately, he works for the xenophobic, fairly terrible Government, that’s hell-bent on wiping out all alien cultures and silencing those damn hippies that want equal rights, representation, and inclusion in the Government for all species. On the bright side, there’s already a rebellion underway, and Sheldon’s about to be dragged kicking and screaming right into the center of it, whether he likes it or not…
Pairings: Gen, slash, het - let’s just say pretty much everyone/everyone to varying degrees. (If you're concerned, just ask.)
PART ONE + MIX | PART TWO
(Leonard)
Leonard and Leslie are curled up against each other in the corner of the cell. Rather than dealing with them individually, for the moment everyone from their old complex has been shoved into a massive indoor cell. It’s about the size of their old paintball course, except, of course, it doesn’t have any of the obstructions and fake plants and trees and the like. Unfortunately, it’s also missing those necessary things like food and blankets and anything else. There’s water, near the cell doors, but that’s it. The bare necessities, evidently.
“It’s a good sign,” Leslie says. She strives for confidence in her voice, but her grip on Leonard’s hand tightens, as if looking for reassurance. “If this was anything but a power play, they’d have pulled us out one by one and interrogated us, wouldn’t they?”
Leonard’s been a jumble of nerves and anxiety ever since the Government ships landed, spilling out Agents, but the one good thing about it has been no longer needing to hide his and Leslie’s relationship. (Government Agents tended to frown upon too close relationships between workers, and, if there was no discord in a working environment, tended to force discord. It had been easier for Leonard and Leslie to continue to be at odds, at least on the face of it, even as they shared talk of the rebellion on their pillows and escaped to empty office rooms. No doubt the Government knew of their affair, but they would assume that they were sneaking around because they were only in it for the sex, and ashamed of their liaisons, rather than the truth.) (To be honest, the liaisons had been kind of hot, sex-wise, though.)
“You think they’re trying to scare us, or everyone else?” he asks.
“Don’t tell me you’re wimping out now,” she says, but there’s laughter in her voice for the first time in two days, and he curls his free arm around her, pulling her closer. He’s not sure why, but it’s easier to be strong when there’s someone you wish you could protect with you.
“Well,” he says, “You know me. Always the first one to go down in paintball.”
“That’s just because I always liked to hunt you down,” she says, grinning a little at the way Leonard tries on offended.
“Pulling my pigtails, were you?” he asks, and she tilts her head against his shoulder, feels the rise and fall of his chest against her arm.
“You know me,” she says, “I like a good chase.”
Nearby, Howard and Kripke are playing cards. Leonard’s not too sure he wants to know where they got the cards from, but for the moment he’s ignoring those sort of questions and focusing on the fact that he can hear their voices, the rise and fall of syllables. Whatever’s happening, whatever’s going to happen, he thinks, at least they’re together.
(Sheldon)
The Demeter docks into Caltin around midnight local time. A few hours earlier, Raj had crawled into Sheldon’s room and they’d spent the time since departing from their usual, instead lying together on the bed, curling against each other for warmth and for comfort and something like forgiveness.
Now that they’ve arrived at Caltin, the energy’s picked up. Sheldon’s still not entirely certain of what’s going on, but on the bright side everyone else seems to have very definite plans.
They go down a tunnel, turn into another tunnel, and follow a fairly labyrinth path until finally it feeds out into a large room. The equipment inside is both extremely expensive and quite sensitive, some of which he’d been haggling with the Governmental lackeys for years to try to get his hands on. He manages to put a cap on the drooling seconds before a tall woman steps out and eyes them squarely.
“Amy Farrah Fowler,” Penny says, grinning a little at the other woman, and Amy grins at her with real delight.
“Penny! It’s been too long, bestie!” she says. Amy’s dressed in a long green skirt that swirls around her ankles, but she carries herself almost stiffly, her arms straight at her sides and her head tilted slightly as she examines the newcomers.
“You must be Sheldon Cooper,” she says, stepping forward.
“Must I?” Sheldon asks dryly. Her lips twitch, and she inclines her head slightly.
“Point taken,” she says. She turns to Raj, and for the very first time that Sheldon has ever seen, Raj becomes unaccountably flustered. “Rajesh,” she says warmly. “How have you been?”
“Good,” Raj says, “Well. I’ve been well. Thanks to you, of course.”
As Sheldon eyes them curiously, Penny smiles and leans in. “Raj used to have a bit of a problem speaking to women. Amy helped him out of it.”
There are so many questions that raises that Sheldon is left momentarily flummoxed. Before he gets a chance to ask any of them, though, Bernadette has slipped past them and, opening a side cabinet, begun pouring large glasses of wine for all of them.
“So,” Penny says. “War council. We doing this?”
(Kripke)
Kripke had been counting on the fact that he’d be flagged for interrogation after his little stunt with distracting Zack. He’d really rather hoped that it would only be him, though. He had an escape all set up, with Siebert tagged for an excellent breakout plan. He was supposed to be in a small interrogation cell on the fourth floor. Instead, he’s in this giant holding cell, with far too many people who work for the rebellion and even more innocent scientists that are terrified out of their timid minds, and no escape in sight. So. He’s had better luck with plans.
Howard had found a deck of cards from somewhere (and Kripke would really rather not ask where, given the way Howard has a tendency to leer at anything moving and the limited options Howard actually had at getting the cards). They’re playing poker (which Kripke had to talk down from strip poker), and Kripke, surprisingly, is…actually enjoying himself.
“So was this how this was all supposed to play out?” Howard asks, leaning in a little over the cards in his hands, his hair messy across his forehead. There’s something naïve about him, for all of it, and Kripke shrugs.
“There’s plans on top of plans,” he says. “I’m sure someone somewhere knows what’s going on.”
“Someone that’s one of the good guys, yeah?”
Kripke looks over the cards in his hands, the oils on his fingertips making the cards feel slick against his skin.
“We got him out,” he says. “If nothing else, we got him out.”
Howard is quiet for a few minutes, except for a distracted raise and call.
“It was worth it, yeah?” he asks at last, and there are so many things Kripke could say to that, so many words and paths that stretch out before him, that he’s momentarily struck speechless.
“It was the only thing we could do,” he says at last. “It was worth it. It was worth more.”
Howard tries on a smile, his lips stretching uncomfortably to accommodate the sharp edges that cut their way onto his face. “It figures,” he says, “It figures it would be Sheldon.”
And Kripke’s watched Sheldon, watched the way he holds himself and carries himself, watched the way he bends into Raj’s touch and leans on Leonard’s strength, and even how he’s molded into something that fits against Howard’s shape, despite all of his fears and eccentricities. More than that, he’s had front row seats to the curl of Sheldon’s lip and the irritation in the set of his shoulders, and no, no he’s not surprised it was Sheldon at all.
He licks his lips and says none of this.
“At least we’re out of that place,” he says instead. “Had my skin crawling.”
“Oh, yeah, prison is so much better,” Howard half-snorts. Kripke grins.
“We’re only being detained,” he says. “No prison yet.”
“Just locked up for the foreseeable future,” Howard says. “Well. At least the food can’t be worse.”
Kripke looks at the cards in his hand and can picture the room he learned to play poker in, the bedroom walls and his older brother’s voice washing over him as he explained the rules, grinning at little Barry, who was still so young.
“Right,” he says.
There must be something in his voice, in the way he holds himself, because Howard’s hand settles lightly on Kripke’s knee for a second before retreating, a brief brush of comfort.
“Hey,” he says. “It was worth it. It was.”
(Raj)
“Wil? Wil Wheaton? From Trek and all those propaganda vids? He’s part of your rebellion?” There’s a vein in Sheldon’s head that’s really quite distracting, but Raj pats him on the shoulder anyway.
“He’s really quite a magnificent undercover spy,” Raj says. “Who would ever suspect him? Especially as his propaganda ads became more…”
“Risqué?” Penny cuts in, snorting.
“He does like to put on a show,” Bernadette says, sighing a little in dreamy remembrance.
“Ah, but you wouldn’t have seen them, Sheldon,” Raj says. “Much to my disappointment, I found that those sorts of subjects were all banned from the complex. Can you pull one up? He should know what he’s getting into.”
Amy smiles in a demure, and slightly evil, manner. “One moment.”
The entire vidscreen is suddenly filled with Wil.
Sheldon lets out a little noise of terror. Raj pats him reassuringly on the shoulder.
“Come now,” he says, “It’s not that bad.”
The picture Sheldon is holding has Wil in fishnet stockings, red stilettos, red lipstick, and a strategically placed teddy bear. The caption at the bottom says, “We care about you beary much.” Worse, it’s an official Government ad, the Seal in the bottom right corner, and the ad paid for and representing the Department of Health.
Sheldon lets out another high pitched whine, and Penny glances over. “He all right?”
“Oh, his brain is just breaking a little,” Raj says, squeezing Sheldon’s arm reassuringly. “He’ll be fine.”
“Wesley?” Sheldon says, more breath than air. “Wesley Crusher?”
(Sheldon)
After entirely too many images that have now seared themselves, quite permanently, into Sheldon’s memory, there are three quick beeps and then an odd whirr from one of the many machines around them.
“We hacked Government channels and use them to send messages,” she says. “Unfortunately, they still use faxes.” She tears the paper from the printer with a flourish. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was enjoying herself.
“He’s contacted us,” she says. “Once Kripke’s rescue had to be aborted, he’d said he’d examine the situation and get back to me.”
“He who?” Sheldon asks. Penny gives him a fond smile and Amy sends him an annoyed glance.
“Classified,” she says, her voice sharp.
“Need to know,” Raj adds, apologetic. Penny just shrugs, lounging against the marble countertops. She grabs the paper from Amy’s hand and skims it, with Raj leaning over her shoulder, making appropriately noncommittal noises as she reads, but when she looks up her eyes are bright and there’s something soft in her cheeks.
“Well,” she says.
“It’s about Leonard and the others, isn’t it,” Sheldon says. “What does it say?”
“We have more information, but-” Raj starts. He looks between Sheldon and Penny.
“We can’t go off on a rescue mission,” Penny says. “Not with him. Raj, I know how much you’re worried, but we can’t risk Sheldon. You know that.”
“Can’t risk me?” Sheldon half-snarls. “I think I have a say in the matter.”
“You really don’t,” Penny says.
“I-”
“Do you not get what we risked to save your ass in the first place?” Penny snaps, turning around to face him. “Do you know what sort of concerted effort it took? Who we still don’t even know is alive or dead because of the stunt we had to pull passing off as a Government transport-the planning, the hacking into records? Where the hell do you think our doctor disappeared to? We don’t even know if she’s alive, Sheldon, so yeah, yeah you don’t so much get a say in the matter. You’re staying safe if I have to tie you down and lock you up myself.”
“This is what my life is going to be?” he asks, because he’s angry and he’s lost and he’s never learned to censor himself or pick his battles. “This is it? This is your plan? Hiding me from the Government forever? Always on the run?”
Amy’s smiling a little as she steps between Penny and Sheldon, her green skirt twisting a little on her hips.
“That can’t really be what you think,” she says. “You must realize that we’ve plans upon plans, don’t you? You must realize that.”
“Then what’s going on?” he asks.
“There’s very few people who know the whole plan,” Amy says. “It’s easier, and safer, that way, in case you get caught. But I believe Penny told you that I’ve contacts with other, non-human cultures. Those central governments, of course, don’t know that the Government plans to attack them, as we can’t be sure that their reaction wouldn’t simply be to preemptively strike, and let’s be honest, that probably would be their reaction. However, there’s a whole collection of people, human and non-human, that are working together. We want them to be allowed into the Union. More than that, though, we don’t want all-out war between the different governments, with all the little people caught in the middle.”
“That doesn’t explain your plan of action,” Sheldon says. Amy looks quietly amused, somehow, even though her face is still painfully straight.
“You’re going to tell a hand selected group of top engineers how they can create an engine that will allow one to traverse the galaxy. And then they’re going to build it. And then? Then we’re putting the Government on notice.”
“That doesn’t actually explain anything, though-” Sheldon says, irritated, and Raj interrupts, grabbing his arm and shaking his head.
“She’s right,” he says. “We keep the plans under wraps to avoid leaks. We can’t afford to have to start over again, not at this point, and especially not with you already here, with them looking everywhere for you. So no, you can’t come with us on some harebrained rescue mission that will probably end very badly for all involved. And yes, harebrained or not, we’re still going to give it a try.”
Sheldon is quiet as he looks at Raj, at the set of Raj’s mouth.
“You’ll save them?” he asks. It’s a stupid thing to ask, and he knows it, but he can’t seem to stop himself, and it’s not as if he’s really been showcasing his intelligence lately anyway.
Penny leans in, her hair soft around her shoulders, her eyes firm. “We’re going to do our goddamned best,” she says.
(Penny)
The Demeter leaves Caltin a few hours later. Raj is quiet as they take off, and Penny’s not sure if it’s because they’re leaving behind Sheldon or because they’re heading off into what really is an unknown situation. Despite the update from Siebert, busting people out of holding cells is hardly going to be a picnic, access codes or not. Still, it’s not like they really have a choice in the matter. Even if Penny had been wavering on risk versus gain (she’s not), it’s not as if Raj’s puppy dog eyes and trembling bottom lip wouldn’t convince her in a second.
Their plan isn’t so much as well thought out as thrown together at the last second, but then that’s always kind of been their M.O. over the years, and it’d almost be a shame to change it now. Flying by the seat of their pants has practically become an art form for them.
Siebert can get them the codes to the cell and to the transport hanger, but his position in the Government has always been more of a figurehead than one with any real power. If it all goes south, as it most certainly will, he won’t be able to back them up. They know that the Government is searching for a Firefly class ship, like the Demeter, but they were under Government tags when they hit the complex, so they won’t be ID’d that way. Unfortunately, their real tags don’t give them a shot in hell of getting anywhere near the facility they’re being kept in, and Penny’s left her other spaceship in her other pair of jeans.
If their doctor’s still alive, if she kept her cover, she could get them new Government tags. It worked once, there’s a chance it will work again, but no one’s heard head or tail of her since they grabbed Sheldon, and the general consensus is that she went to ground, or… well.
There’s really only one option on the table, and Penny’s not keen on it, but it’s not like she’s got a whole lot of choices right now.
“Leonard is in a holding cell?” Beverly repeats. Her voice is uncomfortably cool, and Penny knew, she just knew this was a bad idea.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” she says.
“I notice you still haven’t told me your name,” Beverly says, eyeing her in a direct manner. Penny eyes her right back.
“I need to know what you’re willing to do to get your son out of there,” she says. “I need to know what you’re willing to risk.”
“Surely,” Beverly says, her voice dry, a touch sarcastic, “Surely if he’s not guilty of anything, the Government will release him.” They stare at each other for a long minute. “Well,” Beverly says, “If you were working for the Government, that would have been enough for you to slap me in the proverbial irons. What do you need?”
Penny sucks in a breath of air, something releasing inside of her. There were parents, after all, that would willingly feed their children to the Government spies. She hadn’t been sure.
“I hear you have a ship,” Penny says. “I’d like to borrow it.”
Beverly lifts a cool eyebrow. “Certainly not,” she says. “You’ll never get him out of there without my help. I’ll be coming along.”
This is how Penny finds herself smiling at two attractive Governmental Agents as they board Beverly’s ship (the Curie) and examine Beverly’s papers.
For the record, this is not something she ever wants to repeat in her life.
Also, she really, really, really misses her ship.
(Sheldon)
He’s not too keen on this plan, which has him walking, with a long haired wig that looks truly awful on him, into a room full of pro-Government people and getting “picked” by Wil, whatever that means. (He’s sure it can’t be good.)
Amy, however, is adamant that it’s the only way he’ll be able to sneak past the Government checkpoints. Wyatt, who’d stayed behind with them in order to drop them off on the Demeter, is now out of range, and he’s feeling quite exposed. However, the thought of engineers modifying engines in order to allow a ship to travel easily between stars, to reach even their farthest settlements with ease instead of week or month long journeys, all due to his calculations is-well, it’s worth the momentary trepidation.
Besides, Wyatt will be able to meet them once they’re through the checkpoints-Demeter herself won’t be flagged. It’s only Sheldon Cooper, after all, that has the large target painted upon his face.
(Raj)
“Shit. Shit.”
“What?” Raj asks, biting the word off. She shakes her head.
“They changed the codes,” she says.
“How long until the guards circle back again?” he asks. She looks over his shoulder and winces.
Penny grabs Raj and yanks him toward her. Even without the threat of imminent death hanging over his head, he’s pretty much always up for making out with people he has crushes on, and it’s not like he hasn’t been half in love with Penny ever since she first saved his ass in the middle of a bar fight, a brawl that Kurt, of course, had initiated. So when she yanks him toward her he goes easily, hands finding her waist and curling into her hair. And he gets that yes, this is to hide them and to keep them safe, but as he licks inside her mouth and her body curls against his, her hand sliding underneath his shirt to settle on his waist, her mouth twisting into a smile against his, he takes a moment to appreciate the feel of her, the taste of her, the smell of her.
Penny curls her leg around the back of Raj’s, pulling him back into her and hooking him closer to her. She hears the way his breath hitches, and it’s hard not to fall a little in love with Raj, as long as you know that he falls a little in love with everyone else. She’s seen the way Sheldon looks at him, and the way Raj so easily catches Sheldon’s hand. Still, this isn’t just about hiding, and this isn’t just about Government business, this is about friendship and trust and sometimes it’s just about kissing someone because they’ve got an easy smile and pretty eyes and know you better than maybe you’d ever like to admit.
They listen, with only half an ear, as the footsteps come closer, pause, and then continue past them, the two guards chuckling with each other. When they pull apart, they’re both a little flushed, but they don’t jump apart, guiltily one might add, until Beverly appears practically out of thin air.
“There appears to be a delay?” she prompts.
Penny practically swallows her tongue.
“They changed the codes,” Raj says.
“Well,” Beverly says. “We’ve come this far, surely we can manage the rest?”
“I can try to-to get it out of one of the guards,” Penny says.
“I assume you have a getaway vehicle?” a new voice chimes in, and all three of them whirl around. A guard is standing there, hands up a little as they fall into defensive positions. “Hey,” he says. “I’m only here because I’m trying to get out a friend.”
“Who are you?” Penny asks, her voice sharp.
“My name is Zack,” he says. “I was the guard at the complex that let you waltz out with Dr. Cooper?”
“Oh. Oh,” Penny says.
“Look, I’m not interested in toppling the Government or what have you, but I’d really like to get Kripke the hell out of there. So. You have a getaway vehicle?”
“Hell yes we do,” Beverly says.
(Penny and Raj stare at her in shock.)
(Leonard)
“Mom?” he practically squawks.
Beverly pats his cheek in a rather misguided desire to be maternal. “Hello, Leonard,” she says. “Do hurry, we’re on a bit of a schedule here.”
(Sheldon)
Wil looks from Amy to Sheldon and smirks, a little bit condescending, a little bit arrogant. “You,” he says, curling his finger at Sheldon, “Come here.”
In front of everyone, Wil leans in and kisses Sheldon-openmouthed and wet and pure sex. His fingers are sure and steady as they start unbuttoning Sheldon’s shirt, and when Sheldon starts to make a dismayed sound, Wil swallows it down and keeps kissing him.
The pretense is complete. There’s no one in the room that would suspect that Wil was taking Sheldon with him for any reason but to have hours upon hours of sex. Even Amy is left a little unsure.
Wil’s fingers tangle with Sheldon’s as he pulls him down the corridor, and Sheldon stumbles a few times because he’s having trouble keeping his eyes off of him. Wil’s clothes are less artfully disheveled like they were earlier, and more tugged and pulled at in ways that give little doubt to what he was just doing, and Sheldon’s hands curl against his sides against a wave of-of feeling, and it’s not something he can place or pin down or categorize. He tries to push it away, tries to numb it with the facts of xenocide and rebellion and all those things that really ought to have far more precedence in his head right now, but he’s finding it a little difficult to draw his mind away from the way Wil’s hair felt under his fingertips.
“You know why you’re here?” Wil asks, except his voice dips a little lower than maybe even he was intending, and Sheldon’s cheeks are still flushed. Wil bites back a groan. As much as he’s been living a lie for the past however many years, he’s become used to certain things, like the ability to take advantage of mutual attraction and lust. It’s hard for him to keep his hands off of Sheldon, hard to look away from his kiss-swollen lips.
“Amy Farrah Fowler told me that you could sneak me past security checkpoints,” he says. “She said you’re a spy for the rebels, and no one would ever suspect you, and that I ought to make sure you don’t take advantage of me, because she’s heard rumors.”
Wil grins, slow and amused. “I knew I’d like her,” he says. At Sheldon’s frown, he shrugs a shoulder carelessly. “We’ve had contact over the years, but I’ve never had the chance to meet her face to face. Too risky, given the integral part we both play-if either of us were to fall under investigation, we’d both have ended up ruined, and given the contacts we have…well. Best to stay separate.”
Sheldon looks around the room carefully, trying to avoid looking at the mussed sheets on the bed or the array of scanty looking clothes thrown over the sofa and chairs. Wil slinks (purely out of habit) over to the dresser, and runs a hand through his hair, leaving it perilously on end.
“What am I doing here?” Sheldon asks, voice low as his eyes follow Wil’s journey. Wil looks over his shoulder at him, eyebrow raised, eyes dark in the lowlights of the room.
“We’re going to tear down the Government,” he says, snarky delight lighting up his face. “Don’t tell me you missed the memo?”
(Penny)
They drop pretty much everyone off on some shitty backwater planet that the Government hasn’t visited for anything other than tax collecting in over a decade. Beverly decides to stay on the ship and see it through, and Penny kind of appreciates the steel backbone the lady has.
Bernadette and Stuart, who’d guarded the ship while they’d broken everyone out, had been having a hard time around that many people, used as they are to the small crew on the Demeter, so they were both excessively relieved. Leonard and Leslie and Howard had been relieved, but for other, more life-saving reasons.
Kripke and Zack had…disappeared.
(Kripke)
“You were breaking me out of prison? Out of prison?”
“Technically,” Zack says, “It was a holding cell.”
“That is possibly the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Zack shrugs. “Isn’t that what friends do?”
Kripke worries his bottom lip, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “Is that what we are? Are we friends? Is that what this is?”
“Of course we’re friends,” Zack says. He narrows his eyes at him. “And next time you’re up to something stupid, let me know.”
Kripke smiles weakly and starts to stand, but before he can make it up to his feet, Zack has one hand on each armrest, pinning him in. “I didn’t say we were just friends,” he says, and leans in and kisses him.
(And the rest of the crew doesn’t see them for a few days.)
(Sheldon)
They get past the checkpoint well enough, although Wil has a habit of making Sheldon as sex-messy as possible whenever they get close to them.
“Part of the deception,” Wil always says.
Sheldon protests the logic, but not the actions.
A day out from their destination, Wil drops the ship and his whole entourage off on a Destination planet - Come See the Stars At the Edges of Civilization! - and he, Amy, and Sheldon set off in a little chartered ship that's got little to no engine power and the worst artificial grav that Sheldon's even been subjected to. Wil would very much like to distract him, but Amy's running navigation which leaves him as pilot. Sheldon has the official job of freaking out, which he manages oh so well.
When they finally reach the location, a Dr. Gablehauser meets them. Sheldon hates him on sight, but talks him and his team through the principles, and the modifications they’ll require. They stay there for two weeks, and despite hearing nothing from Penny and Raj, Sheldon is finally starting to feel better.
Really, the plan is doing quite well.
Suspiciously well, but then Sheldon's never gone in for luck and superstition. Maybe he should start, though, because half a day out of the engineer's hidden base, a Government ship hails them, requesting they immediately stand down. Wil, who's still piloting their little crap heap of a ship, engages in evasive maneuvers, while Amy looks for any possible hiding place in the sector.
Station 17 isn't too far away, and the Government ship doesn't seem too keen on firing upon them - which gives Wil further proof that they suspect who's on board - but their little ship is vastly out of it's depth engine-wise.
"Sheldon, Sheldon it's going to be-fuck-it's going to be fine, okay?" Wil shouts, unable to look away from the view screen.
Behind them, Sheldon's started opening panels and pulling out wiring.
"Hey, Sheldon, now's really not the time to start having a nervous breakdown, okay? Keep it together, all right? Are you-Amy, are you-"
"I'm boosting the engine speed," Sheldon says. "The ship will most likely fall apart if it's kept at this speed for more than two hours, but it's not as if we have much choice in the matter."
"You-what?" Wil asks, sparing a moment to look back at him. Just in time to see a few sparks and then a small explosion. "Sheldon?"
"Try it now," Sheldon says, grabbing onto the back of Wil's seat as the artificial grav cuts out for a moment.
"What're you-"
"Try it now," Sheldon and Amy both say, and Wil guns it.
An hour and a half later, the Government ship farther behind but still tracking them, the ship starts to fall apart as they enter the atmosphere; they crash land on the surface of Station 17.
(Penny)
Penny likes the Curie, she does, but given it’s just been used in one of the most massive prison breakouts ever seen, she’d really like to ditch it. Unfortunately, Wyatt isn’t at the meet-up, and when she uses the truly awful Government radio/fax channels to message Amy, there’s no response.
She heads them toward Apris, where Sheldon should be working with the engineers. (It’s not something she’s strictly supposed to know, but then Penny’s never been one to stay out of the loop.)
Penny could fly most ships blindfolded, which, at the present time, is quite a useful skill to have, given the way they’re having to fly completely under the radar. Not even Beverly’s credentials are going to get them past the Government checkpoints.
When she hits Apris, she finds out three things: Wyatt and the Demeter have beat her here, Wil and Sheldon and Amy left a day ago, and they intercepted a call for backup on Station 17, regarding the capturing of certain undesirables.
Because nothing but nothing could ever be easy.
(Sheldon)
They run and they run and they run, feet scrambling for purchase on the ground. Sweat pools at the small of Sheldon’s back and his lungs are burning, and whatever mandatory exercise he used to do at the complex is no match for this, did nothing to prepare him for this. Wil is keeping pace better than Sheldon would have expected from all of those posed photographs and propaganda vids, and Sheldon’s reminded of the muscles he felt along his arms as they’d kissed, the way he holds a gun, and sometimes the dichotomy of actor and rebel spy have seemed too far to consider real, but right now it’s easy to see the both of them in Wil.
The complex they’re running towards gleams in the distance, ground stretching between them, and Sheldon embraces the ache in his muscles and the blister rubbing its way onto the back of his left heel and even the way the wind burns his eyes as he runs.
They run and they run and they run and they don’t stop for anything.
He catches them all the same.
The Gentleman steps closer. He’s dressed all in black, typically evil and menacing, and Wil would be quietly amused at the theatrics of all of it if there wasn’t a gun pressed against his back. As it is, his eyes are focused on Sheldon.
Sheldon’s standing, back braced against the wall of the complex.
“I can’t allow you to abuse it,” he says. His voice is steady, steadier than Wil expected. Amy, twisting against the arms of the two men holding her back, lifts her chin a little at the sound of it, pride tugging her lips into an awkward smile.
The Gentleman’s lips curl into a too-sharp smirk. “You will tell me how you solved the equation, Dr. Cooper,” he says. “You will tell us how to bypass the speed restrictions we’ve encountered.”
“You’ll use it as a weapon,” Sheldon says. “I can’t allow you to do that.”
“Dr. Cooper,” the Gentleman says, glancing first at Wil and then Amy, and finally at Sheldon, standing alone. “You haven’t much of a choice.”
And Sheldon has learned a thing or two about choices. He’s learned a thing or two about trust and about responsibility, and while the whole debacle hasn’t exactly been a very special episode of anything, it’s been…something. Something that tastes like chocolate and wet kisses, something that sounds like Missy’s songs and feels like Penny’s curves against his body; and he gets that doing the right thing is hard, but maybe life isn’t just science and figuring things out, maybe it’s figuring things out for the right reasons, and maybe it’s deciding what those reasons are.
He’s tempted to say something profound and overstated, like there’s always a choice, but instead he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet. The cool breeze slides against his skin, and he’s grateful for that, for the reminder of wind against his face and sun against his cheeks. The ground gives slightly beneath his feet, the way the Flandorian tiles never did, and he’s gathering himself, pulling himself together, giving himself over.
“Dr. Cooper,” the Gentleman says, because the Government’s Agents don’t get names. Sheldon’s tired of namelessness, and he’s tired of hiding, but he’s just starting to fall back in love with air and sunlight and dirt and trees, and most of all running. So far he’s loving running.
He takes off, hearing Wil’s voice lurch up with a desperate collection of words, and Amy’s overlap as he tears past her. More than that, though, he can hear the slow, deliberate, insidious crawl of the Gentleman’s voice as Sheldon gives his everything over and skims past him. The complex is tall and wide and metal steel, and it casts a long shadow on the dirt, but it’s earthbound, tied inextricably to the ground. And Sheldon’s learning the ground. He’s learning crater and mountain, molehill and ditch. He runs for the cliffs’ edge and he doesn’t look back.
There’s the sound of a scuffle from somewhere behind him, but he keeps running, hearing the soft echo of footsteps giving chase. He knows he’s too valuable for them to shoot. He’s counting on it.
He can remember Missy’s hand in his, the smell of hay from the stacks below, the heat of the enclosed space. You want to fly? she’d ask, and he’d squeeze her hand in reply, and they’d never count out loud but when they got to three they’d always known, always jumped together.
You want to fly?
And the cliff is twenty feet away, less, and there’s wind at his back pushing him forward, and he’s ready to fly, ready to give his all, ready to give up in all ways but one. He won’t let them win. He does not, after all, take losing well.
Ten feet away, less, and then the sound of an engine gunning rolls over him. He skitters to the left, feeling ground give way, shifting on the sand until he falls to his hands and his knees. He’s looking up when Demeter rises above the edge of the cliff, her pale grey skin bright with reflected sunlight. There’s a figure standing on her top, feet settling on the metal. Another’s climbing out of the hatch behind, but even with the glare and the heat and the Gentleman behind him, he knows that standing figure, knows her as he knows himself. She levels the gun and aims behind him.
“You want to fly, Shelly?” she calls out, her voice rolling between them over the sound of engines, and Sheldon stands, and runs, and jumps.
(Missy)
Missy makes sure her brother’s clambering up the side of Demeter in one piece. Once she is, she stops herself from saying run or are you all right? or all those overly saccharine statements that can wait until they’re all no longer on the verge of dying. As it is, she’s just still in a degree of shock that she can see him, that he’s there, that he’s alive. There was a lot of time when she wasn’t sure if she’d ever even get that. If she’d ever even get that little degree of hope, of success. It’s hard, she thinks, hard to have to wait and have to suffer and have to hope, and be consigned to hope and hope alone. And it’s not fair, but maybe these things are never fair. At the very least, she knows the Government isn’t.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, out of breath and struggling to remember the particulars of standing. “How are you even here?”
“Sheldon,” Penny calls, smirking, “I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to introduce you to our doctor?” She loops an arm through Missy’s and kisses her cheek, grinning at the way Sheldon looks torn between disbelief and irritation. It becomes moot when, after a moment of deliberation, he runs straight for Missy, dignity be damned, and envelopes her in his arms.
“Shelly,” Missy says, almost crooning as her hands come up to squeeze him tight, “Shelly, you don’t know what I had to go through to get you out of there. But it was worth it,” she says. “It was worth it.” She pulls back from him a little to get a better look at him. “Look at you!” she says, “Look how tall you got!”
And maybe it’s been eighteen years since the last time he saw her, but there’s the same mischief in the corners of her eyes, the same telltale lilt to her voice as she speaks, and the sheer fact that’s she here, the sheer fact that she came for him-
(Sheldon)
“Hey, Sheldon,” Wil calls. He’s closer, now, still with the gun at his back and the Agents around him. “You maybe want to break up the cuddle fest and help out a little?”
“Wil Wheaton,” Missy calls, shaking her head. “Awful shocked to hear you had a hand in this.”
Sheldon looks between Missy and Wil and then decides he truly, desperately does not want to know that story.
“You know me,” Wil smirks, “Never could turn down a pretty face.” He winks lasciviously at Sheldon, and Sheldon’s cheeks go a rather flattering shade of red.
“Get down from there,” the Gentleman orders, irritation coloring his voice. Penny pulls out her gun and aims it at him.
“Seems we have ourselves a standoff,” she says, voice cool and steady. Sheldon looks between the two of them, worried, because Wil’s-well. He’d rather not have Wil killed terribly, if it’s all the same. He gathers himself up, standing forward a little on the balls of his feet.
"Captain," he says, relishing in her small smile when he says it, "Do you happen to have an extra gun I could use?"
Wyatt presses a gun into his hand as he comes up behind them, and now it's the four of them standing against the Agents below. Wil's smiling up at Sheldon as if he doesn't realize there's a gun at his back, and then Bernadette comes flying out from a hatch down beneath. There’s a scattered collection of shots, and then Wil’s picking up a gun from the dropped Agents around him, and Amy’s doing what is possibly supposed to be some sort of kung fu but is mostly just deeply disturbing.
Sheldon drops to his knee to take better aim, while Penny flings herself off the ship and down into the melee, jumping on the back of an Agent just as he was about to attack Amy. ("Bestie!" Amy shouts with a grin.) Missy's steady with the gun in her hands, but Sheldon's not surprised at that-she always had a good aim and a careful ease.
He's never shot a man before, so he makes sure the first time he does, it counts. The Gentleman falls to his knees, and Sheldon can hear his pulse in his ears, the overwhelming pressure of it all, but-
The last battle isn’t pretty and it isn’t quick, but when it's over, it's finally over, at least long enough for them to catch their breath. Wyatt Jr. gets shot in the arm, but it’s nothing too serious, nothing that won’t heal with time. So basically, as long as they outlive the next ten minutes, they should be in the free and clear.
Wil and Raj set up the Vidcam.
Given how Sheldon’s face has been plastered pretty much everywhere as the kidnapped scientist in the last few weeks, it’s been decided it’ll be him and Wil that deliver the announcement via vidcast. Now that Missy’s here, though, he tugs her with him in front of the camera, his grip tight, his eyes continuing to skim over her face, ascertaining that she’s real, that she’s there, that she’s not going anywhere.
Wil gives a long foreword, slipping in innuendos like he can’t help himself (and let’s be honest here, he probably can’t), but when the time comes to wrap it up he glances over at Sheldon and grins. And Wil has a lot of smiles in his repertoire-eager and amused and aloof and distant and cold and sharp and hungry and so many more it’s impossible to count, impossible to tie him down to numbers-but this is the first time this grin, this relieved and giddy and grateful grin, has ever made a public appearance.
Wil gave the foreword because he’s Wil Wheaton, celebrity, and it’s nice to have backing, good to have people listen up and take notice, and because he’s the fucking poster boy for living in a Government ruled world, of giving in and backing down and saying please sir, may I have some more? when you get stepped on. Maybe that’s always been part of his persona, maybe he’s been building it all up for this moment over the years, building up the perfect soldier just for this chance to tear it all down.
Because this time, oh, this time he’s saying hey, guys, let’s not do this. Let’s not be dicks. And if the Government is going to be a dick, then maybe they shouldn’t get a chance to play. Maybe we should cut them out and do things the way we know, deep down, we should.
So by the time Sheldon steps in front of the camera, his palm damp against Missy’s, there’s silence in the control room; the sort of silence in which breathing sounds loud from someone next to you. There’s a feeling in the air, of waiting, of hoping, and Sheldon looks at Leonard and Leslie, standing together hand in hand, and he looks at Howard and Raj and Bernadette, and Amy and Penny and Wyatt Jr. and all of the rest of them, everyone who’s had a hand in bringing him here today, even when he didn’t realize why, even when he was content to stand in his unnamed office and change the world for all of the wrong reasons.
“This is my sister,” he says. “Her name is Missy, Dr. Missy Cooper. Before today, the last time I saw her we were eight years old. We’re twenty six, now.
“I’ve worked for the Government for the last eight years, because I was told I was supposed to work for the Government. I was taken away from New Texas when I was eight years old, and I was enrolled in the Academy, and I’ve spent my entire life doing exactly what the Government wanted me to do, because that’s what I was taught.
“I figured out how to make spaceships break the speed of light. Right now, we’re trapped in our solar systems, and forced to travel slowly from world to world. Trips between space stations take days, between planets weeks. The alien cultures that we’ve encountered all exist months away, and how can we begin to foster a relationship with them when we haven’t had the chance to truly meet?
“The Government wants to use what I have solved to create armed spaceships. They want to start a war with our neighbors. They want to eradicate all non-humans. And I can’t allow that. I won’t allow that. And you shouldn’t allow that, either.
“I’ve lived my life inside complex walls, in a Government sanctioned environment. I ate Government sanctioned food and I slept on a Government sanctioned bed and my entire life I’ve bent to the whims of those who are neither more intelligent nor more concerned with the wider political ramifications of my work.
“I was born in New Texas, and my daddy had a saying. He said “No guts, no glory.” We have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing mine here. I think it’s time the Government steps back and allows it’s citizens the chance to change things. Because this isn’t a world that I want to live on. And right now, I’m the only one in the universe who knows that equation.
“There’s a ship, though. Her name is the Demeter, and she has a new engine installed.”
Raj has the portable Vidcam working, and he flips it on, taking in Sheldon and Missy and Wil, all of whom are now slowly following Penny and the others outside. The Demeter glistens a little in the sunlight, and it’s hard not to feel a wash of home and freedom and something like safety, something like hope, upon seeing her.
“Here she is,” Sheldon says, as Raj and Wil hook the camera up on the tripod stand, so it’s facing the ship. “We can’t activate the Warp engines inside the atmosphere, but once we hit it, you’ll see a blue glow instead of the normal orange. And we’ll disappear.
“Right now, we’re on Station 17. The complex is unnamed, naturally, but I think it’s time we start naming things. I think it’s time we stop hiding.”
Penny leans in over Sheldon’s shoulder, grinning for the camera and the viewers and everyone else.
“We used to have a little place called Omaha,” she says. “Government shut it down and relocated everyone. Never did tell us why. I think maybe we should call this place Omaha, Sheldon,” she says.
“Omaha,” he says, smiling at her, and then he leans forward and kisses her, maybe for the sake of the viewers, maybe because she’s beautiful and has perfect timing and he’s lost his heart to her, lost his heart to everyone here, to the way they embrace this cause and the way they’ve pulled him into something larger than himself, filling something inside him he didn’t even know was empty. He’s flying high on adrenaline and anxiety and happiness and hope, and she smiles into the kiss, wraps a hand in his coat when he pulls away.
“And hey,” she says, turning back towards the camera but not letting him go, “Hey, all you Government fucks? How ‘bout you try to catch us?”
And then they’re running, piling into the Demeter, laughing and swearing and panicking and hoping, because the one short burst they did to get here wasn’t a real test of the engines, and this is important, this is everything right here, bundled up in a metal shell and human bodies. There’s too many of them on the ship, but no one’s caring right now. They all want to see.
They’re packed into the pilot room, Penny in the seat and the rest of them half on top of each other, but they want to see this; they need to see this.
“No going back,” Penny says, and she looks around at them one last time, these people that she loves so well.
“I think we crossed that bridge a long time ago,” Wil says, leaning in over her shoulder and just about as much into her personal space as he can manage without actually sitting on top of her. Still, she smiles up at him helplessly. He has that effect.
And Sheldon can hear the wind in the trees, can feel the dirt underfoot as he runs, and he has a history of moments to remember, a lifetime to reclaim.
“Let’s start a revolution,” he says. "Warp speed ahead."
Finis
A/N: Thank you the ride, lovies ♥
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~17k
Disclaimer: BBT isn’t mine, etc. (And neither are Firefly or Star Trek, which this draws from.)
Summary: Space!AU. Sheldon just solved the equation for faster than light travel. Unfortunately, he works for the xenophobic, fairly terrible Government, that’s hell-bent on wiping out all alien cultures and silencing those damn hippies that want equal rights, representation, and inclusion in the Government for all species. On the bright side, there’s already a rebellion underway, and Sheldon’s about to be dragged kicking and screaming right into the center of it, whether he likes it or not…
Pairings: Gen, slash, het - let’s just say pretty much everyone/everyone to varying degrees. (If you're concerned, just ask.)
PART ONE + MIX | PART TWO
(Leonard)
Leonard and Leslie are curled up against each other in the corner of the cell. Rather than dealing with them individually, for the moment everyone from their old complex has been shoved into a massive indoor cell. It’s about the size of their old paintball course, except, of course, it doesn’t have any of the obstructions and fake plants and trees and the like. Unfortunately, it’s also missing those necessary things like food and blankets and anything else. There’s water, near the cell doors, but that’s it. The bare necessities, evidently.
“It’s a good sign,” Leslie says. She strives for confidence in her voice, but her grip on Leonard’s hand tightens, as if looking for reassurance. “If this was anything but a power play, they’d have pulled us out one by one and interrogated us, wouldn’t they?”
Leonard’s been a jumble of nerves and anxiety ever since the Government ships landed, spilling out Agents, but the one good thing about it has been no longer needing to hide his and Leslie’s relationship. (Government Agents tended to frown upon too close relationships between workers, and, if there was no discord in a working environment, tended to force discord. It had been easier for Leonard and Leslie to continue to be at odds, at least on the face of it, even as they shared talk of the rebellion on their pillows and escaped to empty office rooms. No doubt the Government knew of their affair, but they would assume that they were sneaking around because they were only in it for the sex, and ashamed of their liaisons, rather than the truth.) (To be honest, the liaisons had been kind of hot, sex-wise, though.)
“You think they’re trying to scare us, or everyone else?” he asks.
“Don’t tell me you’re wimping out now,” she says, but there’s laughter in her voice for the first time in two days, and he curls his free arm around her, pulling her closer. He’s not sure why, but it’s easier to be strong when there’s someone you wish you could protect with you.
“Well,” he says, “You know me. Always the first one to go down in paintball.”
“That’s just because I always liked to hunt you down,” she says, grinning a little at the way Leonard tries on offended.
“Pulling my pigtails, were you?” he asks, and she tilts her head against his shoulder, feels the rise and fall of his chest against her arm.
“You know me,” she says, “I like a good chase.”
Nearby, Howard and Kripke are playing cards. Leonard’s not too sure he wants to know where they got the cards from, but for the moment he’s ignoring those sort of questions and focusing on the fact that he can hear their voices, the rise and fall of syllables. Whatever’s happening, whatever’s going to happen, he thinks, at least they’re together.
(Sheldon)
The Demeter docks into Caltin around midnight local time. A few hours earlier, Raj had crawled into Sheldon’s room and they’d spent the time since departing from their usual, instead lying together on the bed, curling against each other for warmth and for comfort and something like forgiveness.
Now that they’ve arrived at Caltin, the energy’s picked up. Sheldon’s still not entirely certain of what’s going on, but on the bright side everyone else seems to have very definite plans.
They go down a tunnel, turn into another tunnel, and follow a fairly labyrinth path until finally it feeds out into a large room. The equipment inside is both extremely expensive and quite sensitive, some of which he’d been haggling with the Governmental lackeys for years to try to get his hands on. He manages to put a cap on the drooling seconds before a tall woman steps out and eyes them squarely.
“Amy Farrah Fowler,” Penny says, grinning a little at the other woman, and Amy grins at her with real delight.
“Penny! It’s been too long, bestie!” she says. Amy’s dressed in a long green skirt that swirls around her ankles, but she carries herself almost stiffly, her arms straight at her sides and her head tilted slightly as she examines the newcomers.
“You must be Sheldon Cooper,” she says, stepping forward.
“Must I?” Sheldon asks dryly. Her lips twitch, and she inclines her head slightly.
“Point taken,” she says. She turns to Raj, and for the very first time that Sheldon has ever seen, Raj becomes unaccountably flustered. “Rajesh,” she says warmly. “How have you been?”
“Good,” Raj says, “Well. I’ve been well. Thanks to you, of course.”
As Sheldon eyes them curiously, Penny smiles and leans in. “Raj used to have a bit of a problem speaking to women. Amy helped him out of it.”
There are so many questions that raises that Sheldon is left momentarily flummoxed. Before he gets a chance to ask any of them, though, Bernadette has slipped past them and, opening a side cabinet, begun pouring large glasses of wine for all of them.
“So,” Penny says. “War council. We doing this?”
(Kripke)
Kripke had been counting on the fact that he’d be flagged for interrogation after his little stunt with distracting Zack. He’d really rather hoped that it would only be him, though. He had an escape all set up, with Siebert tagged for an excellent breakout plan. He was supposed to be in a small interrogation cell on the fourth floor. Instead, he’s in this giant holding cell, with far too many people who work for the rebellion and even more innocent scientists that are terrified out of their timid minds, and no escape in sight. So. He’s had better luck with plans.
Howard had found a deck of cards from somewhere (and Kripke would really rather not ask where, given the way Howard has a tendency to leer at anything moving and the limited options Howard actually had at getting the cards). They’re playing poker (which Kripke had to talk down from strip poker), and Kripke, surprisingly, is…actually enjoying himself.
“So was this how this was all supposed to play out?” Howard asks, leaning in a little over the cards in his hands, his hair messy across his forehead. There’s something naïve about him, for all of it, and Kripke shrugs.
“There’s plans on top of plans,” he says. “I’m sure someone somewhere knows what’s going on.”
“Someone that’s one of the good guys, yeah?”
Kripke looks over the cards in his hands, the oils on his fingertips making the cards feel slick against his skin.
“We got him out,” he says. “If nothing else, we got him out.”
Howard is quiet for a few minutes, except for a distracted raise and call.
“It was worth it, yeah?” he asks at last, and there are so many things Kripke could say to that, so many words and paths that stretch out before him, that he’s momentarily struck speechless.
“It was the only thing we could do,” he says at last. “It was worth it. It was worth more.”
Howard tries on a smile, his lips stretching uncomfortably to accommodate the sharp edges that cut their way onto his face. “It figures,” he says, “It figures it would be Sheldon.”
And Kripke’s watched Sheldon, watched the way he holds himself and carries himself, watched the way he bends into Raj’s touch and leans on Leonard’s strength, and even how he’s molded into something that fits against Howard’s shape, despite all of his fears and eccentricities. More than that, he’s had front row seats to the curl of Sheldon’s lip and the irritation in the set of his shoulders, and no, no he’s not surprised it was Sheldon at all.
He licks his lips and says none of this.
“At least we’re out of that place,” he says instead. “Had my skin crawling.”
“Oh, yeah, prison is so much better,” Howard half-snorts. Kripke grins.
“We’re only being detained,” he says. “No prison yet.”
“Just locked up for the foreseeable future,” Howard says. “Well. At least the food can’t be worse.”
Kripke looks at the cards in his hand and can picture the room he learned to play poker in, the bedroom walls and his older brother’s voice washing over him as he explained the rules, grinning at little Barry, who was still so young.
“Right,” he says.
There must be something in his voice, in the way he holds himself, because Howard’s hand settles lightly on Kripke’s knee for a second before retreating, a brief brush of comfort.
“Hey,” he says. “It was worth it. It was.”
(Raj)
“Wil? Wil Wheaton? From Trek and all those propaganda vids? He’s part of your rebellion?” There’s a vein in Sheldon’s head that’s really quite distracting, but Raj pats him on the shoulder anyway.
“He’s really quite a magnificent undercover spy,” Raj says. “Who would ever suspect him? Especially as his propaganda ads became more…”
“Risqué?” Penny cuts in, snorting.
“He does like to put on a show,” Bernadette says, sighing a little in dreamy remembrance.
“Ah, but you wouldn’t have seen them, Sheldon,” Raj says. “Much to my disappointment, I found that those sorts of subjects were all banned from the complex. Can you pull one up? He should know what he’s getting into.”
Amy smiles in a demure, and slightly evil, manner. “One moment.”
The entire vidscreen is suddenly filled with Wil.
Sheldon lets out a little noise of terror. Raj pats him reassuringly on the shoulder.
“Come now,” he says, “It’s not that bad.”
The picture Sheldon is holding has Wil in fishnet stockings, red stilettos, red lipstick, and a strategically placed teddy bear. The caption at the bottom says, “We care about you beary much.” Worse, it’s an official Government ad, the Seal in the bottom right corner, and the ad paid for and representing the Department of Health.
Sheldon lets out another high pitched whine, and Penny glances over. “He all right?”
“Oh, his brain is just breaking a little,” Raj says, squeezing Sheldon’s arm reassuringly. “He’ll be fine.”
“Wesley?” Sheldon says, more breath than air. “Wesley Crusher?”
(Sheldon)
After entirely too many images that have now seared themselves, quite permanently, into Sheldon’s memory, there are three quick beeps and then an odd whirr from one of the many machines around them.
“We hacked Government channels and use them to send messages,” she says. “Unfortunately, they still use faxes.” She tears the paper from the printer with a flourish. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was enjoying herself.
“He’s contacted us,” she says. “Once Kripke’s rescue had to be aborted, he’d said he’d examine the situation and get back to me.”
“He who?” Sheldon asks. Penny gives him a fond smile and Amy sends him an annoyed glance.
“Classified,” she says, her voice sharp.
“Need to know,” Raj adds, apologetic. Penny just shrugs, lounging against the marble countertops. She grabs the paper from Amy’s hand and skims it, with Raj leaning over her shoulder, making appropriately noncommittal noises as she reads, but when she looks up her eyes are bright and there’s something soft in her cheeks.
“Well,” she says.
“It’s about Leonard and the others, isn’t it,” Sheldon says. “What does it say?”
“We have more information, but-” Raj starts. He looks between Sheldon and Penny.
“We can’t go off on a rescue mission,” Penny says. “Not with him. Raj, I know how much you’re worried, but we can’t risk Sheldon. You know that.”
“Can’t risk me?” Sheldon half-snarls. “I think I have a say in the matter.”
“You really don’t,” Penny says.
“I-”
“Do you not get what we risked to save your ass in the first place?” Penny snaps, turning around to face him. “Do you know what sort of concerted effort it took? Who we still don’t even know is alive or dead because of the stunt we had to pull passing off as a Government transport-the planning, the hacking into records? Where the hell do you think our doctor disappeared to? We don’t even know if she’s alive, Sheldon, so yeah, yeah you don’t so much get a say in the matter. You’re staying safe if I have to tie you down and lock you up myself.”
“This is what my life is going to be?” he asks, because he’s angry and he’s lost and he’s never learned to censor himself or pick his battles. “This is it? This is your plan? Hiding me from the Government forever? Always on the run?”
Amy’s smiling a little as she steps between Penny and Sheldon, her green skirt twisting a little on her hips.
“That can’t really be what you think,” she says. “You must realize that we’ve plans upon plans, don’t you? You must realize that.”
“Then what’s going on?” he asks.
“There’s very few people who know the whole plan,” Amy says. “It’s easier, and safer, that way, in case you get caught. But I believe Penny told you that I’ve contacts with other, non-human cultures. Those central governments, of course, don’t know that the Government plans to attack them, as we can’t be sure that their reaction wouldn’t simply be to preemptively strike, and let’s be honest, that probably would be their reaction. However, there’s a whole collection of people, human and non-human, that are working together. We want them to be allowed into the Union. More than that, though, we don’t want all-out war between the different governments, with all the little people caught in the middle.”
“That doesn’t explain your plan of action,” Sheldon says. Amy looks quietly amused, somehow, even though her face is still painfully straight.
“You’re going to tell a hand selected group of top engineers how they can create an engine that will allow one to traverse the galaxy. And then they’re going to build it. And then? Then we’re putting the Government on notice.”
“That doesn’t actually explain anything, though-” Sheldon says, irritated, and Raj interrupts, grabbing his arm and shaking his head.
“She’s right,” he says. “We keep the plans under wraps to avoid leaks. We can’t afford to have to start over again, not at this point, and especially not with you already here, with them looking everywhere for you. So no, you can’t come with us on some harebrained rescue mission that will probably end very badly for all involved. And yes, harebrained or not, we’re still going to give it a try.”
Sheldon is quiet as he looks at Raj, at the set of Raj’s mouth.
“You’ll save them?” he asks. It’s a stupid thing to ask, and he knows it, but he can’t seem to stop himself, and it’s not as if he’s really been showcasing his intelligence lately anyway.
Penny leans in, her hair soft around her shoulders, her eyes firm. “We’re going to do our goddamned best,” she says.
(Penny)
The Demeter leaves Caltin a few hours later. Raj is quiet as they take off, and Penny’s not sure if it’s because they’re leaving behind Sheldon or because they’re heading off into what really is an unknown situation. Despite the update from Siebert, busting people out of holding cells is hardly going to be a picnic, access codes or not. Still, it’s not like they really have a choice in the matter. Even if Penny had been wavering on risk versus gain (she’s not), it’s not as if Raj’s puppy dog eyes and trembling bottom lip wouldn’t convince her in a second.
Their plan isn’t so much as well thought out as thrown together at the last second, but then that’s always kind of been their M.O. over the years, and it’d almost be a shame to change it now. Flying by the seat of their pants has practically become an art form for them.
Siebert can get them the codes to the cell and to the transport hanger, but his position in the Government has always been more of a figurehead than one with any real power. If it all goes south, as it most certainly will, he won’t be able to back them up. They know that the Government is searching for a Firefly class ship, like the Demeter, but they were under Government tags when they hit the complex, so they won’t be ID’d that way. Unfortunately, their real tags don’t give them a shot in hell of getting anywhere near the facility they’re being kept in, and Penny’s left her other spaceship in her other pair of jeans.
If their doctor’s still alive, if she kept her cover, she could get them new Government tags. It worked once, there’s a chance it will work again, but no one’s heard head or tail of her since they grabbed Sheldon, and the general consensus is that she went to ground, or… well.
There’s really only one option on the table, and Penny’s not keen on it, but it’s not like she’s got a whole lot of choices right now.
“Leonard is in a holding cell?” Beverly repeats. Her voice is uncomfortably cool, and Penny knew, she just knew this was a bad idea.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” she says.
“I notice you still haven’t told me your name,” Beverly says, eyeing her in a direct manner. Penny eyes her right back.
“I need to know what you’re willing to do to get your son out of there,” she says. “I need to know what you’re willing to risk.”
“Surely,” Beverly says, her voice dry, a touch sarcastic, “Surely if he’s not guilty of anything, the Government will release him.” They stare at each other for a long minute. “Well,” Beverly says, “If you were working for the Government, that would have been enough for you to slap me in the proverbial irons. What do you need?”
Penny sucks in a breath of air, something releasing inside of her. There were parents, after all, that would willingly feed their children to the Government spies. She hadn’t been sure.
“I hear you have a ship,” Penny says. “I’d like to borrow it.”
Beverly lifts a cool eyebrow. “Certainly not,” she says. “You’ll never get him out of there without my help. I’ll be coming along.”
This is how Penny finds herself smiling at two attractive Governmental Agents as they board Beverly’s ship (the Curie) and examine Beverly’s papers.
For the record, this is not something she ever wants to repeat in her life.
Also, she really, really, really misses her ship.
(Sheldon)
He’s not too keen on this plan, which has him walking, with a long haired wig that looks truly awful on him, into a room full of pro-Government people and getting “picked” by Wil, whatever that means. (He’s sure it can’t be good.)
Amy, however, is adamant that it’s the only way he’ll be able to sneak past the Government checkpoints. Wyatt, who’d stayed behind with them in order to drop them off on the Demeter, is now out of range, and he’s feeling quite exposed. However, the thought of engineers modifying engines in order to allow a ship to travel easily between stars, to reach even their farthest settlements with ease instead of week or month long journeys, all due to his calculations is-well, it’s worth the momentary trepidation.
Besides, Wyatt will be able to meet them once they’re through the checkpoints-Demeter herself won’t be flagged. It’s only Sheldon Cooper, after all, that has the large target painted upon his face.
(Raj)
“Shit. Shit.”
“What?” Raj asks, biting the word off. She shakes her head.
“They changed the codes,” she says.
“How long until the guards circle back again?” he asks. She looks over his shoulder and winces.
Penny grabs Raj and yanks him toward her. Even without the threat of imminent death hanging over his head, he’s pretty much always up for making out with people he has crushes on, and it’s not like he hasn’t been half in love with Penny ever since she first saved his ass in the middle of a bar fight, a brawl that Kurt, of course, had initiated. So when she yanks him toward her he goes easily, hands finding her waist and curling into her hair. And he gets that yes, this is to hide them and to keep them safe, but as he licks inside her mouth and her body curls against his, her hand sliding underneath his shirt to settle on his waist, her mouth twisting into a smile against his, he takes a moment to appreciate the feel of her, the taste of her, the smell of her.
Penny curls her leg around the back of Raj’s, pulling him back into her and hooking him closer to her. She hears the way his breath hitches, and it’s hard not to fall a little in love with Raj, as long as you know that he falls a little in love with everyone else. She’s seen the way Sheldon looks at him, and the way Raj so easily catches Sheldon’s hand. Still, this isn’t just about hiding, and this isn’t just about Government business, this is about friendship and trust and sometimes it’s just about kissing someone because they’ve got an easy smile and pretty eyes and know you better than maybe you’d ever like to admit.
They listen, with only half an ear, as the footsteps come closer, pause, and then continue past them, the two guards chuckling with each other. When they pull apart, they’re both a little flushed, but they don’t jump apart, guiltily one might add, until Beverly appears practically out of thin air.
“There appears to be a delay?” she prompts.
Penny practically swallows her tongue.
“They changed the codes,” Raj says.
“Well,” Beverly says. “We’ve come this far, surely we can manage the rest?”
“I can try to-to get it out of one of the guards,” Penny says.
“I assume you have a getaway vehicle?” a new voice chimes in, and all three of them whirl around. A guard is standing there, hands up a little as they fall into defensive positions. “Hey,” he says. “I’m only here because I’m trying to get out a friend.”
“Who are you?” Penny asks, her voice sharp.
“My name is Zack,” he says. “I was the guard at the complex that let you waltz out with Dr. Cooper?”
“Oh. Oh,” Penny says.
“Look, I’m not interested in toppling the Government or what have you, but I’d really like to get Kripke the hell out of there. So. You have a getaway vehicle?”
“Hell yes we do,” Beverly says.
(Penny and Raj stare at her in shock.)
(Leonard)
“Mom?” he practically squawks.
Beverly pats his cheek in a rather misguided desire to be maternal. “Hello, Leonard,” she says. “Do hurry, we’re on a bit of a schedule here.”
(Sheldon)
Wil looks from Amy to Sheldon and smirks, a little bit condescending, a little bit arrogant. “You,” he says, curling his finger at Sheldon, “Come here.”
In front of everyone, Wil leans in and kisses Sheldon-openmouthed and wet and pure sex. His fingers are sure and steady as they start unbuttoning Sheldon’s shirt, and when Sheldon starts to make a dismayed sound, Wil swallows it down and keeps kissing him.
The pretense is complete. There’s no one in the room that would suspect that Wil was taking Sheldon with him for any reason but to have hours upon hours of sex. Even Amy is left a little unsure.
Wil’s fingers tangle with Sheldon’s as he pulls him down the corridor, and Sheldon stumbles a few times because he’s having trouble keeping his eyes off of him. Wil’s clothes are less artfully disheveled like they were earlier, and more tugged and pulled at in ways that give little doubt to what he was just doing, and Sheldon’s hands curl against his sides against a wave of-of feeling, and it’s not something he can place or pin down or categorize. He tries to push it away, tries to numb it with the facts of xenocide and rebellion and all those things that really ought to have far more precedence in his head right now, but he’s finding it a little difficult to draw his mind away from the way Wil’s hair felt under his fingertips.
“You know why you’re here?” Wil asks, except his voice dips a little lower than maybe even he was intending, and Sheldon’s cheeks are still flushed. Wil bites back a groan. As much as he’s been living a lie for the past however many years, he’s become used to certain things, like the ability to take advantage of mutual attraction and lust. It’s hard for him to keep his hands off of Sheldon, hard to look away from his kiss-swollen lips.
“Amy Farrah Fowler told me that you could sneak me past security checkpoints,” he says. “She said you’re a spy for the rebels, and no one would ever suspect you, and that I ought to make sure you don’t take advantage of me, because she’s heard rumors.”
Wil grins, slow and amused. “I knew I’d like her,” he says. At Sheldon’s frown, he shrugs a shoulder carelessly. “We’ve had contact over the years, but I’ve never had the chance to meet her face to face. Too risky, given the integral part we both play-if either of us were to fall under investigation, we’d both have ended up ruined, and given the contacts we have…well. Best to stay separate.”
Sheldon looks around the room carefully, trying to avoid looking at the mussed sheets on the bed or the array of scanty looking clothes thrown over the sofa and chairs. Wil slinks (purely out of habit) over to the dresser, and runs a hand through his hair, leaving it perilously on end.
“What am I doing here?” Sheldon asks, voice low as his eyes follow Wil’s journey. Wil looks over his shoulder at him, eyebrow raised, eyes dark in the lowlights of the room.
“We’re going to tear down the Government,” he says, snarky delight lighting up his face. “Don’t tell me you missed the memo?”
(Penny)
They drop pretty much everyone off on some shitty backwater planet that the Government hasn’t visited for anything other than tax collecting in over a decade. Beverly decides to stay on the ship and see it through, and Penny kind of appreciates the steel backbone the lady has.
Bernadette and Stuart, who’d guarded the ship while they’d broken everyone out, had been having a hard time around that many people, used as they are to the small crew on the Demeter, so they were both excessively relieved. Leonard and Leslie and Howard had been relieved, but for other, more life-saving reasons.
Kripke and Zack had…disappeared.
(Kripke)
“You were breaking me out of prison? Out of prison?”
“Technically,” Zack says, “It was a holding cell.”
“That is possibly the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Zack shrugs. “Isn’t that what friends do?”
Kripke worries his bottom lip, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “Is that what we are? Are we friends? Is that what this is?”
“Of course we’re friends,” Zack says. He narrows his eyes at him. “And next time you’re up to something stupid, let me know.”
Kripke smiles weakly and starts to stand, but before he can make it up to his feet, Zack has one hand on each armrest, pinning him in. “I didn’t say we were just friends,” he says, and leans in and kisses him.
(And the rest of the crew doesn’t see them for a few days.)
(Sheldon)
They get past the checkpoint well enough, although Wil has a habit of making Sheldon as sex-messy as possible whenever they get close to them.
“Part of the deception,” Wil always says.
Sheldon protests the logic, but not the actions.
A day out from their destination, Wil drops the ship and his whole entourage off on a Destination planet - Come See the Stars At the Edges of Civilization! - and he, Amy, and Sheldon set off in a little chartered ship that's got little to no engine power and the worst artificial grav that Sheldon's even been subjected to. Wil would very much like to distract him, but Amy's running navigation which leaves him as pilot. Sheldon has the official job of freaking out, which he manages oh so well.
When they finally reach the location, a Dr. Gablehauser meets them. Sheldon hates him on sight, but talks him and his team through the principles, and the modifications they’ll require. They stay there for two weeks, and despite hearing nothing from Penny and Raj, Sheldon is finally starting to feel better.
Really, the plan is doing quite well.
Suspiciously well, but then Sheldon's never gone in for luck and superstition. Maybe he should start, though, because half a day out of the engineer's hidden base, a Government ship hails them, requesting they immediately stand down. Wil, who's still piloting their little crap heap of a ship, engages in evasive maneuvers, while Amy looks for any possible hiding place in the sector.
Station 17 isn't too far away, and the Government ship doesn't seem too keen on firing upon them - which gives Wil further proof that they suspect who's on board - but their little ship is vastly out of it's depth engine-wise.
"Sheldon, Sheldon it's going to be-fuck-it's going to be fine, okay?" Wil shouts, unable to look away from the view screen.
Behind them, Sheldon's started opening panels and pulling out wiring.
"Hey, Sheldon, now's really not the time to start having a nervous breakdown, okay? Keep it together, all right? Are you-Amy, are you-"
"I'm boosting the engine speed," Sheldon says. "The ship will most likely fall apart if it's kept at this speed for more than two hours, but it's not as if we have much choice in the matter."
"You-what?" Wil asks, sparing a moment to look back at him. Just in time to see a few sparks and then a small explosion. "Sheldon?"
"Try it now," Sheldon says, grabbing onto the back of Wil's seat as the artificial grav cuts out for a moment.
"What're you-"
"Try it now," Sheldon and Amy both say, and Wil guns it.
An hour and a half later, the Government ship farther behind but still tracking them, the ship starts to fall apart as they enter the atmosphere; they crash land on the surface of Station 17.
(Penny)
Penny likes the Curie, she does, but given it’s just been used in one of the most massive prison breakouts ever seen, she’d really like to ditch it. Unfortunately, Wyatt isn’t at the meet-up, and when she uses the truly awful Government radio/fax channels to message Amy, there’s no response.
She heads them toward Apris, where Sheldon should be working with the engineers. (It’s not something she’s strictly supposed to know, but then Penny’s never been one to stay out of the loop.)
Penny could fly most ships blindfolded, which, at the present time, is quite a useful skill to have, given the way they’re having to fly completely under the radar. Not even Beverly’s credentials are going to get them past the Government checkpoints.
When she hits Apris, she finds out three things: Wyatt and the Demeter have beat her here, Wil and Sheldon and Amy left a day ago, and they intercepted a call for backup on Station 17, regarding the capturing of certain undesirables.
Because nothing but nothing could ever be easy.
(Sheldon)
They run and they run and they run, feet scrambling for purchase on the ground. Sweat pools at the small of Sheldon’s back and his lungs are burning, and whatever mandatory exercise he used to do at the complex is no match for this, did nothing to prepare him for this. Wil is keeping pace better than Sheldon would have expected from all of those posed photographs and propaganda vids, and Sheldon’s reminded of the muscles he felt along his arms as they’d kissed, the way he holds a gun, and sometimes the dichotomy of actor and rebel spy have seemed too far to consider real, but right now it’s easy to see the both of them in Wil.
The complex they’re running towards gleams in the distance, ground stretching between them, and Sheldon embraces the ache in his muscles and the blister rubbing its way onto the back of his left heel and even the way the wind burns his eyes as he runs.
They run and they run and they run and they don’t stop for anything.
He catches them all the same.
The Gentleman steps closer. He’s dressed all in black, typically evil and menacing, and Wil would be quietly amused at the theatrics of all of it if there wasn’t a gun pressed against his back. As it is, his eyes are focused on Sheldon.
Sheldon’s standing, back braced against the wall of the complex.
“I can’t allow you to abuse it,” he says. His voice is steady, steadier than Wil expected. Amy, twisting against the arms of the two men holding her back, lifts her chin a little at the sound of it, pride tugging her lips into an awkward smile.
The Gentleman’s lips curl into a too-sharp smirk. “You will tell me how you solved the equation, Dr. Cooper,” he says. “You will tell us how to bypass the speed restrictions we’ve encountered.”
“You’ll use it as a weapon,” Sheldon says. “I can’t allow you to do that.”
“Dr. Cooper,” the Gentleman says, glancing first at Wil and then Amy, and finally at Sheldon, standing alone. “You haven’t much of a choice.”
And Sheldon has learned a thing or two about choices. He’s learned a thing or two about trust and about responsibility, and while the whole debacle hasn’t exactly been a very special episode of anything, it’s been…something. Something that tastes like chocolate and wet kisses, something that sounds like Missy’s songs and feels like Penny’s curves against his body; and he gets that doing the right thing is hard, but maybe life isn’t just science and figuring things out, maybe it’s figuring things out for the right reasons, and maybe it’s deciding what those reasons are.
He’s tempted to say something profound and overstated, like there’s always a choice, but instead he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet. The cool breeze slides against his skin, and he’s grateful for that, for the reminder of wind against his face and sun against his cheeks. The ground gives slightly beneath his feet, the way the Flandorian tiles never did, and he’s gathering himself, pulling himself together, giving himself over.
“Dr. Cooper,” the Gentleman says, because the Government’s Agents don’t get names. Sheldon’s tired of namelessness, and he’s tired of hiding, but he’s just starting to fall back in love with air and sunlight and dirt and trees, and most of all running. So far he’s loving running.
He takes off, hearing Wil’s voice lurch up with a desperate collection of words, and Amy’s overlap as he tears past her. More than that, though, he can hear the slow, deliberate, insidious crawl of the Gentleman’s voice as Sheldon gives his everything over and skims past him. The complex is tall and wide and metal steel, and it casts a long shadow on the dirt, but it’s earthbound, tied inextricably to the ground. And Sheldon’s learning the ground. He’s learning crater and mountain, molehill and ditch. He runs for the cliffs’ edge and he doesn’t look back.
There’s the sound of a scuffle from somewhere behind him, but he keeps running, hearing the soft echo of footsteps giving chase. He knows he’s too valuable for them to shoot. He’s counting on it.
He can remember Missy’s hand in his, the smell of hay from the stacks below, the heat of the enclosed space. You want to fly? she’d ask, and he’d squeeze her hand in reply, and they’d never count out loud but when they got to three they’d always known, always jumped together.
You want to fly?
And the cliff is twenty feet away, less, and there’s wind at his back pushing him forward, and he’s ready to fly, ready to give his all, ready to give up in all ways but one. He won’t let them win. He does not, after all, take losing well.
Ten feet away, less, and then the sound of an engine gunning rolls over him. He skitters to the left, feeling ground give way, shifting on the sand until he falls to his hands and his knees. He’s looking up when Demeter rises above the edge of the cliff, her pale grey skin bright with reflected sunlight. There’s a figure standing on her top, feet settling on the metal. Another’s climbing out of the hatch behind, but even with the glare and the heat and the Gentleman behind him, he knows that standing figure, knows her as he knows himself. She levels the gun and aims behind him.
“You want to fly, Shelly?” she calls out, her voice rolling between them over the sound of engines, and Sheldon stands, and runs, and jumps.
(Missy)
Missy makes sure her brother’s clambering up the side of Demeter in one piece. Once she is, she stops herself from saying run or are you all right? or all those overly saccharine statements that can wait until they’re all no longer on the verge of dying. As it is, she’s just still in a degree of shock that she can see him, that he’s there, that he’s alive. There was a lot of time when she wasn’t sure if she’d ever even get that. If she’d ever even get that little degree of hope, of success. It’s hard, she thinks, hard to have to wait and have to suffer and have to hope, and be consigned to hope and hope alone. And it’s not fair, but maybe these things are never fair. At the very least, she knows the Government isn’t.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, out of breath and struggling to remember the particulars of standing. “How are you even here?”
“Sheldon,” Penny calls, smirking, “I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to introduce you to our doctor?” She loops an arm through Missy’s and kisses her cheek, grinning at the way Sheldon looks torn between disbelief and irritation. It becomes moot when, after a moment of deliberation, he runs straight for Missy, dignity be damned, and envelopes her in his arms.
“Shelly,” Missy says, almost crooning as her hands come up to squeeze him tight, “Shelly, you don’t know what I had to go through to get you out of there. But it was worth it,” she says. “It was worth it.” She pulls back from him a little to get a better look at him. “Look at you!” she says, “Look how tall you got!”
And maybe it’s been eighteen years since the last time he saw her, but there’s the same mischief in the corners of her eyes, the same telltale lilt to her voice as she speaks, and the sheer fact that’s she here, the sheer fact that she came for him-
(Sheldon)
“Hey, Sheldon,” Wil calls. He’s closer, now, still with the gun at his back and the Agents around him. “You maybe want to break up the cuddle fest and help out a little?”
“Wil Wheaton,” Missy calls, shaking her head. “Awful shocked to hear you had a hand in this.”
Sheldon looks between Missy and Wil and then decides he truly, desperately does not want to know that story.
“You know me,” Wil smirks, “Never could turn down a pretty face.” He winks lasciviously at Sheldon, and Sheldon’s cheeks go a rather flattering shade of red.
“Get down from there,” the Gentleman orders, irritation coloring his voice. Penny pulls out her gun and aims it at him.
“Seems we have ourselves a standoff,” she says, voice cool and steady. Sheldon looks between the two of them, worried, because Wil’s-well. He’d rather not have Wil killed terribly, if it’s all the same. He gathers himself up, standing forward a little on the balls of his feet.
"Captain," he says, relishing in her small smile when he says it, "Do you happen to have an extra gun I could use?"
Wyatt presses a gun into his hand as he comes up behind them, and now it's the four of them standing against the Agents below. Wil's smiling up at Sheldon as if he doesn't realize there's a gun at his back, and then Bernadette comes flying out from a hatch down beneath. There’s a scattered collection of shots, and then Wil’s picking up a gun from the dropped Agents around him, and Amy’s doing what is possibly supposed to be some sort of kung fu but is mostly just deeply disturbing.
Sheldon drops to his knee to take better aim, while Penny flings herself off the ship and down into the melee, jumping on the back of an Agent just as he was about to attack Amy. ("Bestie!" Amy shouts with a grin.) Missy's steady with the gun in her hands, but Sheldon's not surprised at that-she always had a good aim and a careful ease.
He's never shot a man before, so he makes sure the first time he does, it counts. The Gentleman falls to his knees, and Sheldon can hear his pulse in his ears, the overwhelming pressure of it all, but-
The last battle isn’t pretty and it isn’t quick, but when it's over, it's finally over, at least long enough for them to catch their breath. Wyatt Jr. gets shot in the arm, but it’s nothing too serious, nothing that won’t heal with time. So basically, as long as they outlive the next ten minutes, they should be in the free and clear.
Wil and Raj set up the Vidcam.
Given how Sheldon’s face has been plastered pretty much everywhere as the kidnapped scientist in the last few weeks, it’s been decided it’ll be him and Wil that deliver the announcement via vidcast. Now that Missy’s here, though, he tugs her with him in front of the camera, his grip tight, his eyes continuing to skim over her face, ascertaining that she’s real, that she’s there, that she’s not going anywhere.
Wil gives a long foreword, slipping in innuendos like he can’t help himself (and let’s be honest here, he probably can’t), but when the time comes to wrap it up he glances over at Sheldon and grins. And Wil has a lot of smiles in his repertoire-eager and amused and aloof and distant and cold and sharp and hungry and so many more it’s impossible to count, impossible to tie him down to numbers-but this is the first time this grin, this relieved and giddy and grateful grin, has ever made a public appearance.
Wil gave the foreword because he’s Wil Wheaton, celebrity, and it’s nice to have backing, good to have people listen up and take notice, and because he’s the fucking poster boy for living in a Government ruled world, of giving in and backing down and saying please sir, may I have some more? when you get stepped on. Maybe that’s always been part of his persona, maybe he’s been building it all up for this moment over the years, building up the perfect soldier just for this chance to tear it all down.
Because this time, oh, this time he’s saying hey, guys, let’s not do this. Let’s not be dicks. And if the Government is going to be a dick, then maybe they shouldn’t get a chance to play. Maybe we should cut them out and do things the way we know, deep down, we should.
So by the time Sheldon steps in front of the camera, his palm damp against Missy’s, there’s silence in the control room; the sort of silence in which breathing sounds loud from someone next to you. There’s a feeling in the air, of waiting, of hoping, and Sheldon looks at Leonard and Leslie, standing together hand in hand, and he looks at Howard and Raj and Bernadette, and Amy and Penny and Wyatt Jr. and all of the rest of them, everyone who’s had a hand in bringing him here today, even when he didn’t realize why, even when he was content to stand in his unnamed office and change the world for all of the wrong reasons.
“This is my sister,” he says. “Her name is Missy, Dr. Missy Cooper. Before today, the last time I saw her we were eight years old. We’re twenty six, now.
“I’ve worked for the Government for the last eight years, because I was told I was supposed to work for the Government. I was taken away from New Texas when I was eight years old, and I was enrolled in the Academy, and I’ve spent my entire life doing exactly what the Government wanted me to do, because that’s what I was taught.
“I figured out how to make spaceships break the speed of light. Right now, we’re trapped in our solar systems, and forced to travel slowly from world to world. Trips between space stations take days, between planets weeks. The alien cultures that we’ve encountered all exist months away, and how can we begin to foster a relationship with them when we haven’t had the chance to truly meet?
“The Government wants to use what I have solved to create armed spaceships. They want to start a war with our neighbors. They want to eradicate all non-humans. And I can’t allow that. I won’t allow that. And you shouldn’t allow that, either.
“I’ve lived my life inside complex walls, in a Government sanctioned environment. I ate Government sanctioned food and I slept on a Government sanctioned bed and my entire life I’ve bent to the whims of those who are neither more intelligent nor more concerned with the wider political ramifications of my work.
“I was born in New Texas, and my daddy had a saying. He said “No guts, no glory.” We have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing mine here. I think it’s time the Government steps back and allows it’s citizens the chance to change things. Because this isn’t a world that I want to live on. And right now, I’m the only one in the universe who knows that equation.
“There’s a ship, though. Her name is the Demeter, and she has a new engine installed.”
Raj has the portable Vidcam working, and he flips it on, taking in Sheldon and Missy and Wil, all of whom are now slowly following Penny and the others outside. The Demeter glistens a little in the sunlight, and it’s hard not to feel a wash of home and freedom and something like safety, something like hope, upon seeing her.
“Here she is,” Sheldon says, as Raj and Wil hook the camera up on the tripod stand, so it’s facing the ship. “We can’t activate the Warp engines inside the atmosphere, but once we hit it, you’ll see a blue glow instead of the normal orange. And we’ll disappear.
“Right now, we’re on Station 17. The complex is unnamed, naturally, but I think it’s time we start naming things. I think it’s time we stop hiding.”
Penny leans in over Sheldon’s shoulder, grinning for the camera and the viewers and everyone else.
“We used to have a little place called Omaha,” she says. “Government shut it down and relocated everyone. Never did tell us why. I think maybe we should call this place Omaha, Sheldon,” she says.
“Omaha,” he says, smiling at her, and then he leans forward and kisses her, maybe for the sake of the viewers, maybe because she’s beautiful and has perfect timing and he’s lost his heart to her, lost his heart to everyone here, to the way they embrace this cause and the way they’ve pulled him into something larger than himself, filling something inside him he didn’t even know was empty. He’s flying high on adrenaline and anxiety and happiness and hope, and she smiles into the kiss, wraps a hand in his coat when he pulls away.
“And hey,” she says, turning back towards the camera but not letting him go, “Hey, all you Government fucks? How ‘bout you try to catch us?”
And then they’re running, piling into the Demeter, laughing and swearing and panicking and hoping, because the one short burst they did to get here wasn’t a real test of the engines, and this is important, this is everything right here, bundled up in a metal shell and human bodies. There’s too many of them on the ship, but no one’s caring right now. They all want to see.
They’re packed into the pilot room, Penny in the seat and the rest of them half on top of each other, but they want to see this; they need to see this.
“No going back,” Penny says, and she looks around at them one last time, these people that she loves so well.
“I think we crossed that bridge a long time ago,” Wil says, leaning in over her shoulder and just about as much into her personal space as he can manage without actually sitting on top of her. Still, she smiles up at him helplessly. He has that effect.
And Sheldon can hear the wind in the trees, can feel the dirt underfoot as he runs, and he has a history of moments to remember, a lifetime to reclaim.
“Let’s start a revolution,” he says. "Warp speed ahead."
Finis
A/N: Thank you the ride, lovies ♥