Disclaimer: I don't own The Big Bang Theory.
Summary: While on a date with some random meat-head, Penny realizes just how much she misses the incessant geek-talk of Sheldon Cooper. Sure, she hardly understands what he's saying most of the time, but she can still miss it. SheldonPenny, oneshot
Yeah, I love this show. I ship pretty much anyone with everyone, but I just thought I'd try a SheldonPenny for my first fic of this fandom. I really love the show and I hope I do it justice! I'd really love to hear what y'all have to say about it! Thanks so much for reading!
Talk Nerdy to Me
Well, isn't this guy a charmer.
No, no, no.
Anti-charmer, more like it.
Penny stares at him. Just stares. It seems like that's the only good thing about this guy - the fact that he's eye candy. That's why she talked to him in the first place, and one thing led to anther and he asked her out. So here they are, just sitting here and having awkward conversation.
"So, yeah, and then I was like whoa dude! And he was like dude! And I was like man, look out for that surfboard!"
She actually has to restrain herself from gouging her eyes out her fork.
Penny knows that she used to date nothing but the stereotypical dumb jock. The ones in high school that would pick on the people that were just like the guys she now called her friends. She knew this, and yet she still dated them. Couldn't help it, she guessed. She has her patterns, everyone does, and this was just one of them.
However, out of all the jocks she's dated, she can't help but feel like this date is different. It's almost like she's been splashed over the head with a bucket of ice water, it's that clear to her now.
She's not really interested in this guy.
Sure, he's a nice physical specimen. Tall, wavy blonde hair, muscled, nice teeth.
But he's…dim.
She hates to admit it, but he is. Maybe dimmer than her usual conquests. Penny knows that she herself isn't the brightest crayon in the box, but this guy is seriously one of the most non-bright crayons she's ever met.
Oh, God, is he talking about surfing again?
She's not really concerned with the conversation. He hasn't included her once. Though she's used to not knowing the subject matter of some conversations - most noticeably the ones that she has with Leonard and Sheldon - she, at least, is included when they talk. This guy has only stopped in his tirade about surfboards and how he was almost cast in the Jaws remake - which, to her knowledge, was never even in talks for happening - to look at her breasts.
Seriously.
She fiddles with the end of the napkin. She's taken to tearing off small bits of the paper and flicking them in his direction. He hasn't even noticed. Some of them have even lodged in that oddly coifed hair of his and she has to fight a smile each time she looks at his vacant expression.
Ugh.
The whole thing makes her sick.
Which is odd. Usually, she didn't really mind the guys being so dimwitted. She liked it, actually. They were more her speed than, say, Leonard or Howard or Raj or Sheldon.
But now, they feel oddly - what's the word - sub-par.
Not in intelligence, but the fact that they rarely cared about her in relation to other things. Like surfing. Or easy women. Or more surfing, in this guy's case. (What was his name, anyway?)
She knows it makes her seem like a bad person, but she just can't wait to get out of here.
"So, Big Z was like - "
"Can I get the check, please?" Penny asks the waitress, flagging her down with a desperate hand.
The waitress stops, looks sympathetically in her direction, and smiles before tottering off to get the check.
Penny lets her eyes close and lets out a breath of relief.
When she opens her eyes, however, she finds that the guy still hasn't stopped talking about himself - and she forces her eyes shut yet again. It is almost enough to make her mouth gape open like some kind of fish. He's still talking in that awful voice of his. She had thought that maybe she had exaggerated the awfulness of this date, but she realizes now that that wasn't the case. She runs a hand through her hair and fights back a groan.
She finds that Sheldon's image is printed on the backs of her eyelids.
Which is, Penny admits, strange.
This leads to a rather bizarre train of thoughts.
Penny finds herself thinking of how that date would go. A date with her and Sheldon. It's rather strange, the very idea of it, but the thought comes to her nonetheless. She knows Sheldon has his quirks - okay, that might be an understatement - but he can be very nice when he wants to be.
And even though he talks incessantly, at least he is intelligent - intelligent to the point where Penny finds her brain turning to mush for a completely different reason than the problem presented now, but she digresses.
She's seen how he is with Amy. And that may be because Amy has a high IQ and doesn't work at a cheesecake factory, but she digresses. She's seen what he's like with her, and she thinks that just maybe he could be a good boyfriend, quirks aside.
Penny doesn't know why she decides to think of him now, of all times, but she finds that it is infinitely more interesting to think of how a possible date between her and Sheldon would pan out. It seems silly and foolish and like the sort of thing that a high school teenager would partake in, but she can't help herself.
Sheldon would talk, sure. About a lot of things. He would talk about his work and the things that he knows about - which are various. And she would talk and he wouldn't cut her off or talk about surfing or whatever dull thing that this guy was talking about right now.
The date would be nice, she decides.
At that point, the meat-headed guy decides to blow his nose on one of the nicer napkins in the restaurant. Penny cringes and rises from her seat.
"Hey, Lenny, where are you going?"
"My name is Penny, you idiot!"
"Hey, no need to get…all…woman-y…y…"
Penny blinks and is totally about to go all Nebraska on this dolt when the check comes. Ah, the best kind of revenge next to actually kicking him in the man-parts with her heels. "You can get that."
"Wait, but I have no money!"
"Bad for you, then, huh?" Penny turns and storms out of the restaurant, ignoring everyone's burning glances at her back.
She walks. Walks and walks and walks. All the while playing the horrible date over and over again in her head, interspersed with images of Sheldon Cooper of all people. She can't figure out why she's so hung up on what a date with him would be like, but she knows that she missed his presence while that guy was talking during their date. She chalked it up to the fact that she was desperate to talk to someone that actually knew her and actually cared - but that was silly, Sheldon didn't care…
Somehow or another, she arrives at her apartment. She doesn't actually remember getting there, but she is glad that she can actually get out of this silly, uncomfortable dress she had worn to impress her date. Ugh, the very notion that she once had that thought makes her sick to her stomach.
She's fiddling with the key to her apartment, so angry and confused with herself that she can barely unlock the door, when she hears Sheldon and Leonard's apartment door open.
"Penny?"
She spins around, heart flying a bit too much at the sound of that precise, familiar voice. "Hey, Sheldon."
And she's a bit too excited to see him, which is really, really, really bad.
He stands there, such a stark contrast to her date that it is almost humorous. Almost. In fact, she's never found the fact less funny than it is right now.
"Leonard informed me you had a date tonight."
"Yes."
"I assume it is appropriate social protocol to ask how it went?"
Penny starts laughing. "Awful."
"And it is social protocol for me to sympathize."
"No," she says, waving him off. "Just…"
She trails off, not sure what she was supposed to say in relation to that. Penny finds herself a bundle of emotions, confused and relieved and happy all at the same time - and she still doesn't know why. Sheldon just continues to look at her with his head cocked to the side, examining her as if she is a particularly intriguing scientific experiment.
Then after a while, he moves to the side, allowing her to gaze into the empty apartment, "Tea?"
Penny finds herself laughing - almost hysterically - and she steps forward, feeling more right in doing this than in comparison to anything she has done all evening. "Tea would be nice, Sheldon."
And, for some reason, she feels like crying. She doesn't, though, for once. She was certain that wouldn't be in Sheldon's emotional range to deal with. So she keeps it all in and sits herself on the couch as the gangly young man busies himself in the kitchen, roaming about and fixing the very tea that she's not so certain she wants.
She does watch him, though. That seems to both help and confuse her all at the same time. She watches as his slender hands go through the motions of making the tea, watches as he moves about the kitchen, as graceful as a bulldozer. Penny smiles at that.
The minutes move by quickly, and the tea is done. Sheldon pours two cups and moves to sit in his usual spot - Penny has known better than to take that spot away from him for what seems like years - and he hands her the tea he has made for her. He makes sure not to directly touch their fingers, and Penny knows not to take offense to this.
It's surprising, how much she knows his little quirks.
And there's silence.
It's a comfortable kind of silence, one that Penny has learned to appreciate. Whereas years ago, she'd feel the need to talk to fill it, now she just knows to enjoy it while it lasts. She finds that she enjoys it more because she's in the presence of Sheldon, which is a silly though in and of itself.
She thought that by hanging out with him, she'd get some kind of justification about her strange bout of feelings brought on by that horrible date, but all in all it confused her even more.
Penny can think of nothing else to do, really, except sit here.
"It will be alright, Penny."
At first, she's shocked at the tone of his voice. Then, the words hit her full force. Those don't sound very Sheldon-like at all and it stuns her into even more silence before she replies.
"Thanks."
And she smiles at him, and somehow it all feels full circle.
End.