Sheldon and Leonard trudged up the apartment building stairs, their footsteps heavy with regret.
Two PhDs—one in theoretical physics, one in experimental—had walked into a sperm bank brimming with confidence in their superior intellect, only to chicken out the moment they started filling out the paperwork.
"Are you still upset about the sperm bank thing?" Sheldon broke the silence.
Leonard was still sulking. "No."
"Want to hear something interesting about stairs?"
"...Not really."
Sheldon continued anyway. "Even a two-millimeter difference in step height will trip most people."
"I don't care!"
...
"Two millimeters? That can't be right."
"Oh, it is. I ran a series of experiments when I was twelve. My father broke his collarbone."
"Is that why they sent you to boarding school?"
"No, that was because of my laser experiments."
After finally reaching their fourth-floor apartment, Leonard pulled out his keys. That's when he noticed the door across the hall was open, and inside was a gorgeous blonde packing boxes.
Leonard's eyes widened. "New neighbor?"
Sheldon stated the obvious. "Evidently."
Leonard swallowed. "A significant upgrade from the last one."
"You mean the two-hundred-pound transvestite with the skin condition?" Sheldon mused. "Yes, I'd say she's an improvement."
Sheldon remained unmoved. As far as he was concerned, no woman could compete with Star Wars or the Flash.
"Hi! I'm Leonard, this is Sheldon—we're your neighbors."
"Hey! I'm Penny, just moved in."
Penny smiled warmly, privately noting: These two look like textbook socially-awkward nerds. Safe enough.
Just then, the door to the guys' apartment swung open and a young man stepped out.
He was tall and moved with quiet confidence, wearing a well-tailored gray suit with the top two buttons of his shirt undone, revealing a hint of collarbone. Light brown hair fell casually across his forehead.
"Sheldon, Leonard?" The guy looked mildly confused. "You just get back from the sperm bank?"
"Ah—" Leonard jumped in quickly. "Ethan! What are you still doing here? Don't you have patients to see?"
"Yeah." Ethan smiled, his gaze briefly catching on the dazed Penny before understanding dawned. "Our new neighbor? Hi, I'm Ethan Rayne."
It took Penny several seconds to snap out of it. She extended her hand with a brilliant smile, gripping his hand while continuing to stroke it. "Hi, I'm Penny. You are...?"
"Ethan Rayne," he repeated politely, his handshake restrained and proper.
His hand felt... strange. Not hot, not cold, but wrapped in some kind of gentle, comfortable warmth. The moment their hands touched, Penny felt a subtle warmth bloom in her chest, her breathing becoming easier. She thought it was her imagination—she had no idea that in that instant, Ethan's fingertips had moved ever so slightly, releasing a faint, nearly invisible white glow that quietly healed the shoulder she'd strained moving boxes last night.
"You're a doctor?"
"Something like that. I run a small clinic—I help patients that regular hospitals won't treat."
Ethan smiled, then glanced pointedly at Penny, who was still holding his hand.
"Hm? Oh—oh!"
Penny realized she was still gripping his hand and quickly pulled back, trying to regain her composure.
Sheldon raised an eyebrow. "When you say 'won't treat,' do you mean rare diseases, psychosomatic cases, or pseudoscientific conditions not recognized by mainstream medicine?"
Ethan's smile didn't waver. "None of the above. Sometimes the body gets sick because the soul is already broken."
Sheldon frowned. "You're a... spiritual doctor?"
Leonard quickly changed the subject. "We should get inside and clean up—we'll catch up later!"
"Sounds good." Ethan smiled. "See you guys later."
He turned and headed downstairs.
Penny watched him go, her heart racing as she whispered, "There's a doctor that hot living in this building?"
Leonard looked deflated watching Penny's starry-eyed expression. He muttered to Sheldon, "With Ethan around, we'll never get girlfriends."
Sheldon was completely unbothered. "From a biological standpoint, he has superior reproductive advantages."
Leonard sighed. "Sheldon, please stop using the word 'reproductive.'"
Penny didn't exhale until Ethan's footsteps faded completely.
"Wow..." she breathed. "Your roommate is... seriously hot."
Leonard automatically started explaining. "Technically, he's not our roommate—we just share the space."
Sheldon immediately added, "More precisely, he rents the unit next door, but we knocked down the connecting wall for convenience."
"Isn't that the definition of a roommate?" Penny laughed.
Sheldon remained deadpan. "No. He exists in a liminal state between roommate and neighbor—what I call a 'cohabitational boundary-ambiguous entity.'"
Leonard threw up his hands. "Sheldon, nobody wants your sociological lecture."
Penny leaned against the doorframe, still replaying Ethan's face in her mind.
"He doesn't seem like a normal doctor," she mused. "More like... the mysterious type who knows hypnosis, psychology, and can prescribe medicine on the side."
Sheldon nodded seriously. "I noticed that too. He claims to treat people with 'soul problems'—a pseudo-proposition in modern medicine. Unless he's researching quantum entanglement of consciousness."
"Quantum... what?" Penny looked lost.
Leonard quickly clarified. "Ignore him. He just means the guy's kind of... mystical."
Penny laughed. "Then why would he move here? This building is so old even the elevator gave up."
Sheldon replied immediately. "Economic factors are not the primary contradiction."
Leonard looked surprised. "You know dialectical materialism?"
Sheldon ignored him and continued his analysis. "Ethan claims he 'wants to be close to people,' which suggests a bizarre clinical sampling strategy. Normal doctors live near hospitals, not in an apartment building where the average IQ is lower than a California state prison."
Leonard protested, "Maybe he likes the quiet."
Sheldon: "Then he should move into a library."
Penny laughed at their bickering. "Maybe he's just trying to save money? Doctors make good money, sure, but private practices can struggle at first."
Leonard nodded. "He did mention the clinic's been open less than a month. He mostly takes difficult cases—the kind other doctors won't touch."
Penny: "Then he must be really good."
Sheldon: "Or his patients spontaneously recover. Statistics tell us that out of every ten thousand self-healing cases, at least one will be mistaken for a 'miracle.'"
—————————————
Ethan stepped onto the street, looked around, and hailed a cab.
One pulled up quickly.
Ethan slid into the backseat. "Rayne Clinic. Corner of Seventh Avenue and Hudson Street."
The driver turned around. "There's a clinic there?"
Ethan smiled. "Yeah, small place. Just opened recently."
The driver shrugged, shifted into gear, and pulled away.
As the cityscape blurred past the window, Ethan leaned back, absently twisting the silver ring on his finger, thinking about the stunning new neighbor he'd just met.
So the plot of The Big Bang Theory is starting? he thought.
Ever since being reborn here twenty years ago, Ethan had noticed things were... different.
His childhood neighbor was named Cooper and had a genius son named Sheldon.
His high school chemistry teacher was Walter White, and there was a younger student named Peter Parker.
This wasn't reality—it was some kind of merged universe of American TV shows and Hollywood movies.
The realization left him both depressed and anxious.
Depressed because he'd apparently never get back—no more mortgage, no more car payments.
Anxious because he had no system, but he did have abilities that weren't exactly normal.
Before the transmigration, he'd been raiding in World of Warcraft. Just as his priest character was casting Prayer of Healing during a team wipe, the screen flickered—
"Crack!"
The monitor exploded in a shower of sparks, and his consciousness felt like it was yanked away by some invisible force.
When he opened his eyes again, he was Ethan Rayne.
For years, he thought he was just an ordinary person. Then one day, he reached out to help a car accident victim—and white light poured from his palm, instantly stopping the bleeding.
Healing Touch.
That's when he knew for certain:
He'd brought his priest abilities into the real world.
"Heal, Renew, Power Word: Shield, Dispel Magic, Fade... even Mass Resurrection—though I've never dared try that one."
He murmured the skill names under his breath.
It was a strange sensation.
Not faith-based, not energy—more like a resonance flowing through the air itself.
"If Sheldon and Leonard knew I was a healer, would they still make me tank in dungeons?"
He exhaled softly, watching the streetlights flash past the window, his eyes reflecting complicated emotions.
"We're here, sir."
The driver's voice snapped him back.
Ethan pulled out his wallet and handed over a twenty.
"Thanks."
He opened the door and stepped out.
A flickering neon sign glowed dimly at the corner. Ahead stood a two-story brick building with a brass plaque by the door:
Rayne Clinic — Healing Beyond Medicine
Ethan looked up at the weathered wooden door and took a deep breath.
"Alright. A little priest's daily life... begins now."
He gently pushed the door open and stepped inside.