Author's Notes: I had originally planned to write this story in the same format as the show, i.e. with two stories going back and forth. I did think of a couple of secondary stories but as I went along, I realized that the entire story would be too long if I used another one. So I broke show format in this way, though I was careful to follow everything else.
This is my first TBBT story and I would really appreciate any feedback on how I did.
Summary: The fallout from Sheldon's brief bird infatuation, and Leonard and Penny's not-a-date.
Spoilers: This takes place beginning the day after The Orthophoria Diffusion, S5E9.
No beta readers worked on this story.
The Olfactory Overstatement
Suzanne L. Feld
Rated PG
"I lost both Lovey-Dovey and the chance to be a mother."
Penny, just inside the closed door, stared at Sheldon, whose tall, lanky form was standing between the coffee table and the couch with his shoulders slumped. He appeared as bereft as he had when she'd borrowed his clothes folding doohickey without asking. Then she looked at Leonard who was standing nearby nervously twisting the zipper of his grey sweatjacket, which peeked out from beneath the olive one over it. "Want to fill me in?"
"From what I understand, Amy and Bernadette helped Sheldon get over his fear of birds when—"
"He was my Lovey-Dovey! How could he leave me?" Sheldon cried, picking up a small gooseneck lamp from the coffee table and carrying it away down the hall. They heard the door to his room close and a few rather loud, obvious-sounding sobs.
Penny folded her arms, looking after him perplexedly. "Sheldon's no longer afraid of birds?"
Leonard went and collapsed into in the armchair, heaving a sigh. "Apparently."
She sat on the end of the couch and drew her feet up beneath her. When she looked over in his direction, she noticed the lattice of cracks in the small window panes behind him. "Leonard… what happened to the windows?"
He sank even further down into the chair, much like a turtle retreating into its shell. "Sheldon said he tried an ultrasonic stunner—"
"High frequency tone generator!" Sheldon yelled from down the hall. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted Wolowitz's toy degree."
"Well, no matter who did what, I'm going to be the one who gets to show this mess to the landlord," Leonard said despairingly. "I thought Sheldon had gotten over it until we walked in after work and he saw the lamp on the table. Then he started up all over again."
With a little more prodding Penny got the entire story, or at least what he knew of it, out of Leonard. "So, he got up this morning and the egg was cold despite the lamp, so he gave it a burial at sea and is in mourning," he finished up.
"Dare I even ask?"
"Flushed it down the toilet. He mentioned wanting to have a funeral at the train station but I talked him out of it."
"Bet that was fun."
He nodded dispiritedly and they lapsed into silence. Penny stared at the empty coffee table, wondering what they were going to do for dinner and if so, could she mooch another meal. It was between paychecks and she was getting awfully tired of Ramen noodles, PBJs, and neon-orange Kraft macaroni and cheese. At least she wasn't going to run out of wine anytime soon after doing a winery tour with Jean and Sue last weekend.
"So what're your plans for this evening?" Leonard said, rising and shrugging off his jacket. He went over and tossed it across the back of his desk chair, partly on top of his messenger bag which was on the seat. Penny had been listening for them to get home from work and came over as soon as she heard Sheldon whining—she was that hungry.
"Oh, not much. I worked the morning shift today so I was planning to hang around this evening, maybe catch up on my reading—"
"By reading you mean shoe shopping, am I right?" Leonard gave her that sly, crooked grin which she loved so much—not that she'd ever let on to him. Even two years after she'd broken up with him, it still got to her.
Penny tossed her hair but didn't get up. "I read," she said loftily. "So there's a shoe catalog or two in my mail—what of it?"
"The way I understand it, shoe catalogs are your mail," Leonard cracked, going into the kitchen. "Want a water?"
"Sure, thanks," she said as he opened the refrigerator door.
"It's pizza night, Leonard. Are you going to order?"
They both jumped at Sheldon's sudden appearance at the edge of the step next to the fridge. "Yes, Sheldon, I will. Right now I'm offering our guest a cold beverage as social convention dictates." As usual, the taller man was oblivious to the sarcasm.
Sheldon stared over at Penny. "Since when is she a guest? She walks in when she feels like it, has dinner here without pay—"
"Sheldon, be nice!" Leonard interrupted as he handed Penny a cold bottle of Fiji water.
"Why?"
"Because Penny's our friend and I just know that what you were about to say was rude."
"Then can the chit-chat and order the pizza," he snapped, then spun on his heel and disappeared once again down the hall with his loose-limbed yet stiff gait.
"Sheldon's right," Penny said guiltily, getting up from the sofa and setting the bottle of water on the coffee table. "I'm nothing but a freeloader, and you don't need—"
Leonard darted in front of her before she was two steps away from the couch. "Don't say that. We love having you over here."
Penny raised a brow at him. "'We'?"
"Yes, we. Even if Sheldon won't admit it, he considers you a friend."
They both paused and listened. But either Sheldon was out of earshot or didn't care to comment.
A knock came at the front door and Leonard called to come in. Amy opened the door, holding a sheaf of papers in one hand. Penny saw that they were the flyers showing a picture of Sheldon and the bird which had been taped up all around the building. "I thought I may as well—"
"Give me those!" Leonard ripped the papers out of Amy's hand as she closed the door behind herself. She stared at him in surprise, but didn't protest. "If Sheldon sees these, he'll start all over again and he just quieted down." He turned to his desk chair, moved his jacket aside, and lifted the flap of his messenger bag. Stuffing the papers down inside, he glanced furtively at the hallway.
Only moments later Sheldon appeared, saying, "I thought I heard—oh, hello Amy Farah Fowler."
Leonard got the flap closed and stood in front of the chair with his arms crossed over his chest, trying to look relaxed and failing miserably. It appeared more like he was standing on lava and pretending it wasn't melting his shoes.
"Hello, Sheldon," she replied, standing in her awkward straight-backed pose. As usual, she was wearing a rather shapeless blue cardigan, print blouse beneath, a heavy A-line grey wool skirt, and clunky orthopedic shoes. When Penny remembered what Amy looked like when she and Leonard had gone to the wedding a few weeks previously it was hard to believe this was the same woman. She wondered why Amy dressed so dowdily day-to-day, then decided that she really didn't want to know. It doubtlessly had something to do with her mother, and enough said about that.
"Are you ever going to call her just Amy?" Penny asked, heading back to the couch. Leonard had said he didn't want her to leave, so apparently mooching was okay. At least for tonight.
Sheldon ignored her and looked at Leonard. "What's wrong? You look like you're constipated. I tell you, a good bathroom schedule takes care of that every time."
"My bowels are fine, thank you, Sheldon," Leonard said, unobtrusively moving his coat over the bag. "Are we ready to order the pizza?"
Penny wanted to shout about time! but restrained herself.
# # #
"Listen, as long as I don't have to deal with your weirdo roommate we'll get this taken care of," their landlord said, standing with his arms folded by the desk next to the cracked windows. "I'll send my guy up here later this afternoon, and he'll email you an estimate."
"Thanks, Mr. Jean-Pierre," Leonard said gratefully. He didn't mind paying for the repair as long as someone else was going to do it. Best of all, the landlord didn't seem pissed off or annoyed at him. He'd easily believed that Sheldon had cracked the windows after years of personally seeing him do strange things around the building. "I'll make sure he doesn't build any more ultrasonic…" He caught the landlord's dubious look. "Silly machines," he finished lamely.
Shaking his head, the other man walked out of the apartment, leaving the door open behind him. As Leonard went over to it, Penny's door opened across the hall. She was clad in her version of pajamas, a teeny pink tank top that didn't quite cover her navel and a pair of matching short-shorts. There was so much skin showing that he was momentarily speechless. "All clear?"
Sheldon appeared behind her, wearing a large, olive-green WWII-style gas mask that hid his face, and his blue plaid matching robe and pajamas. "It better be," his muffled but audible voice said. "Why am I the only one testing this mask? Shouldn't you both have your own?"
"It's okay, Sheldon, you can take it off now," Leonard said, trying to look anywhere but at Penny. "The test is over."
And of course Sheldon didn't notice Penny's attire—or lack thereof—mandroid that he was. Or would that be it-droid, Leonard wondered in a moment of whimsy. He often speculated on whether or not Sheldon really was male, or perhaps some type of asexual mutant. Either way, he needed no proof.
Penny backed up and let Sheldon out into the hall as he removed the old mask. "This makes no sense," the tall man fussed as he walked over to Leonard. "Awakened at the crack of dawn on a workday by a wrong number, unscheduled gas mask tests in Penny's apartment… what is the world coming to? I could have easily scheduled this test for three a.m., when it's most important, along with my other..." His voice drifted away as he disappeared into the hallway leading to his bedroom carrying the old mask.
"Thanks, Penny," Leonard said, focusing on her toes. They were painted cotton-candy pink and matched her jammies, he noted, then moved his gaze to the number on her door over her shoulder. What this woman did to him!
"You're welcome, Leonard," she smiled, dimpling prettily. Her hair was bed-tousled, one twisted blonde sheaf hanging over her left shoulder to the top of her low-cut tank. It reminded him of times they'd been in bed together, when her hair got even more disheveled due to his hands running through it. "Want to come in for coffee? I don't work today."
"Uh, no, thanks, gotta get ready for work," he babbled, backing up and closing the door hastily. In another minute he would have raced over there and jumped on her, friendship be damned. Didn't it occur to her that he was a red-blooded man and couldn't stand a sight like that without getting aroused?
Leonard glanced down at himself and groaned. He was ready for work, right down to shoes and jacket. Well, she can't think I'm much more of an idiot than I've already shown myself to be, he thought wearily as he went to start his own coffee.
Outside, Penny still stood in her doorway with tears glistening in her eyes, though they hadn't yet fallen. With a sad droop to her shoulders she turned back into her apartment, closed the door with, perhaps, a bit more force than was absolutely necessary, and headed back to bed.
# # #
Leonard stomped into his lab, even more annoyed than he had been earlier. Sheldon had insisted on playing a car game that dealt with obscure facts about World War II, and had refused to take his roommate's silence or shouted "no, dammit!" as a deterrent. So the ride had passed with Sheldon happily burbling on while Leonard grew more and more aggravated and depressed. He was unable to stop thinking about Penny and wondering what he'd done to break them up, even though she insisted that he wasn't the reason.
He threw his messenger bag on a nearby chair and tossed the flap back. For a moment he stared down at the mass of paper inside, trying to remember what in the hell it was. Then he recalled that Amy had taken down Sheldon's posters. Luckily he hadn't noticed them missing as they left the building since he had been bugging Leonard to guess how many tanks were manufactured in Detroit during the years 1939-1944.
Leopard scooped up the crumpled inkjet-printed paper, sorting the flyers out from his actual work. He carried them out the door and stuffed the mess into the old green trashcan in the hallway. Turning back to his office, he forced thoughts of Penny, Sheldon, and running away to Fiji out of his mind, and to work.
Sometime later, a sudden voice behind him made him jump nearly out of his skin. He was working out the last of the formula he planned to test after lunch and drew a squiggly blue line through the equation he had just completed on the dry-erase board. "Leonard, have you seen my thumb drive? I could have sworn I put it in my bag this morning but it's not there."
"Argh, Sheldon, why didn't you knock?" Leonard picked up the eraser and carefully worked away the unintentional lines, redrawing the formula with his other hand. Then he put both marker and eraser down and went over to his desk. "No, I haven't seen it. By the way, why are you carrying a napkin around?"
Sheldon looked down blankly at his hand, in which he clutched a crumpled white paper napkin. "I didn't know I was," he said, reaching over and pushing it through the little swinging door into the trash can he was standing next to outside Leonard's office door. "So anyway—"
Leonard's mind went blank as the moving door in the can caught his eye. He remembered that he'd thoughtlessly thrown Sheldon's posters in there, and now he was standing next to it. If, for any reason—
"Leonard, are you listening to me? I swear, you don't—hey, where's my napkin? I jotted down—" Shelton turned and looked at the waist-high green can next to him.
"Don't! I'll get it!" He darted towards to the trash can, nearly knocking over the mass spectrometer in his haste. Sheldon leapt back, looking at his roommate wide-eyed. Leonard shoved his hand through the opening, searching for the napkin, but when he realized what he was doing and how odd it must look, even to Sheldon, and drew it back, his wrist was trapped. The entire lid tilted forward. He grabbed and held it in place with his free hand, unthinkingly still pulling with the other which was trapped by the closed lid.
Then his feet slipped on the polished floor. Leonard, trash can, and lid crashed down at Sheldon's feet, scattering flimsies and garbage across the polished linoleum. When he looked up, it was to see Sheldon reaching down to pick up a crumpled piece of paper, a very sad look on his long face. "Now I guess I'll never see Lovey-Dovey ever again," he said sadly. "Why would you do this to me, Leonard?"
"Oh for God's sake, Sheldon, it was just a damn bird," Leonard said crossly as he extracted his hand from the green metal can lid and slammed it down on the floor at his side, glad that no one else had witnessed his fall.
"Leonard, what are you doing on the floor?"
He groaned out loud at the sound of Penny's voice. Still sitting on the cold linoleum with both knees raised, he put his face in his hands and leaned forward, resting the back of his hands against his knees. "Someone please tell me that I'm in an alternate dimension."
"Perhaps if the Mandela Effect was true and not the figment of some loony psychic's overactive imagination, you'd flip back to the correct reality," Sheldon said matter-of-factly. "Then we wouldn't remember this having happened."
Leonard ignored his roommate. "What are you doing here, Penny?" he groaned, not looking up.
"I was nearby on a last-minute audition and thought I'd stop in to surprise you and take you to lunch. I felt bad about last night," she said. Then he heard the sound of paper crumpling, and dawning understanding in her voice. "Oh, shit."
Though he knew he'd have to look, and get up, someday, Leonard remained on the floor hiding his face in his hands. "Yeah. Now I'll never hear the end of it."
"Well, what's done is done, and I know Lovey-Dovey is never coming back," Sheldon said with clear sadness in his voice. "But it really hurts me that you tried to hide this from me, Leonard. Why did you take them down without telling me in the first place?"
Leonard finally made himself look up at Sheldon, who stood like a multicolored stork near the far wall, and opened his mouth, then reconsidered. Why have him upset with Amy? It wouldn't do anyone any good, and it could possibly lessen the time he was out of the apartment.
"Because I didn't want to hear you whining about it for days," he said crossly as he got to his feet. Penny was already picking up some of the crumpled flyers, though he noted that she was ignoring the other trash strewn around the hallway. She glanced up at him with surprise on her pretty face and Leonard shook his head as he righted the garbage can and put the lid back on, showing it back into place with one foot. Turning to her he said, "So, still want to go to lunch with an asthmatic and clumsy dumbass?"
But before Penny could reply beyond opening her mouth, Sheldon interrupted. "I thought we were having lunch in the caf?" His face was almost comically surprised. "That's why I came all the way over here. You're not going to make me eat with just Howard and Raj, are you?"
"Oh come on Sheldon, we're not joined at the hip!" Leonard cried. He picked up an empty Red Bull can and shoved it into the trash can, about at his wits' end with this day.
"Fine! I know when I'm not wanted, you Judas!" Shelton did an about-face with almost military precision and stalked away down the hallway, disappearing around the corner.
Though he had picked up pretty much everything else, Leonard spotted a bit of white near Penny's sandaled foot and went to get it. Sure enough, it was the napkin with Sheldon's scribbles on it. "This is what started the entire thing, and I'm not going to let it get lost now," he said, waving it between them before he stuffed it in his front pants pocket. "In fact, let's drop it off on the way out. I don't want Sheldon blowing up my phone or bursting in on our lunch looking for it."
# # #
That evening Penny made a point of not going over to Leonard and Sheldon's. Not only was it becoming clear to her that Leonard was wearing his heart on his sleeve regarding their truncated relationship, she was beginning to feel more than a little guilty about cadging so much food. After the nice lunch he'd treated her to despite her half-hearted protests that she should pay, one night of Ramen noodles wouldn't kill her. Also, they didn't go to her thighs quite as badly as the mac and cheese, even if they weren't as tasty.
Then it hit her that she hadn't cooked the salmon she'd brought home the other day. How hard could it be? I'll look up a recipe on the Internet, she thought as she went to the fridge and opened it. I can finally use some of these pots and pans—
The stench that hit her drove her back a step and Penny gasped for breath. Not a good idea, she realized immediately. She gagged, feeling her gorge rise. Slamming the door shut, she turned away, one hand over her mouth, trying not to breathe, to lean over the cooking island. She struggled to get her stomach under control, but the reek was overwhelming even with the refrigerator door closed. Eyes watering, she stumbled through the apartment and yanked the door open, running face-first into Leonard's solid body and driving them both back a step.
"Ugh, what is that stench?" he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders and steadying them both. "Never mind evil genius Sheldon, did you create a monster?"
Penny pushed him further into the hallway and fumbled back for the doorknob, managing to pull the door shut behind herself. "No, that's the salmon I brought home the other day, before our not-a-date," she gasped, taking in deep lungfuls of clean air. "I guess it was more iffy than anyone knew."
The heavy grey metal door opened across the hall to show Sheldon in his ubituquous double shirts, black sleeves poking out from beneath his favorite red Greatest American Hero t-shirt. "What is—oh my goodness, what a stink! Is that salmon seven days past its sell-by date that I smell?" he said, wrinkling his nose and backpedaling into the apartment.
"Seven days! My manager said it was only a day old," Penny moved away from her door, Leonard following. "We were going to serve it but one of the cooks threatened to call the health department since she forgot to take the expiration date sticker off the package."
"Note to self: don't eat fish at the Cheesecake Factory," Leonard said sotto voice as they passed Sheldon into the other apartment, but she heard him and threw a glare his way.
"Well, that should go without saying," Sheldon said factually as he closed the door behind them.
"You would think," Leonard sighed, then gave Penny a tight smile when he caught her glare in his direction.
"Can you guys help me get rid of the fish?" she said, batting her eyelashes winningly at them. She knew it wouldn't work with Sheldon, who would probably ask if she had an eye infection, but Leonard had always been susceptible to her charms. And she was not above using that attraction when necessary, even if it was a bit unethical. Especially after the not-a-date debacle and Leonard paying for lunch this afternoon. But this was an emergency and she needed to pull out all the stops.
"Do you have something in your eye? Don't rub it."
Penny ignored Sheldon and gave Leonard her best practiced-in-the-mirror damsel in distress look. "Please?"
"Sorry, I'm not going in there," Leonard said firmly, waving one hand behind him as he went around the coffee table to flop in the armchair kitty-corner to the couch. "You said last night that you liked it when I had a backbone, and mine just grew back."
Without a word Sheldon pivoted on his heel and trotted across the living room, disappearing into the hallway where their bedrooms were.
Penny assumed he wouldn't help either and went to sit slumped in middle of the couch, letting her hands dangle between her bent knees. The effect was less than she'd hoped since she was wearing her favorite pastel powderpuff league jersey. Where was a low neckline and a push-up bra when a girl really needed them?
They sat in a heavy silence for a few moments. Then Sheldon came back into the living room with something dangling from one hand that she couldn't identify at first. Then it hit her what it was as he lifted it and she recognized the dull green fabric and two round cups.
When the landlord had called the previous morning and woke Leonard up, he had remembered the old gas mask in the closet from a possible Halloween costume which he'd never made. (He'd said something about Hellboy, but she had no idea what that was.) Knowing Sheldon's penchant for drills of any kind, he'd enlisted her help in getting him out of the apartment while the landlord was there by using it as an excuse. Penny figured that it was the least she could do in exchange for all the meals she'd mooched from them.
"I assume that this is the reason why you had me try it out and make sure it worked," Sheldon said, sliding the old, olive-green WWII-era gas mask down over his face. "I hope the dumpster out back isn't too full."
Looking even more like a gangly praying mantis than usual with the two giant eyeholes, he strode across the polished wood floor to the door and pulled it open. He disappeared into the hallway and, she assumed, to her apartment where he would carry away the bad fish.
Penny stared over at Leonard for a beat, then they both cracked up. No matter how much of a mess it was, she thought as she looked over at him fondly, at least her life here in L.A. was never boring thanks to these two.
finis