Who misses who?

Based on the drawings by gwendy85 at deviantart. http : // gwendy 85. deviantart . com / gallery / # / d24m24o

Leonard had known Sheldon for almost seven years now. Seven... well, wonderful would be stretching it slightly. Let's call them strange years.

Very strange years.

He had walked into their roommate interview with an open mind and walked out with a migraine, a contract bigger than his head and the feeling of being bludgeoned by a Terry Gilliam movie.

He'd gone home, realized that he wasn't actually being secretly filmed and regretted signing the agreement. However he'd decided to stick it out while he looked for somewhere else to live that had the same great location, affordable rent and non-crazy roommate.

Leonard had combed the paper and bookmarked pages of apartments to check out.

The first two weeks had been the worst and several times Leonard had wondered exactly how illegal it was to kill someone. But then he'd gotten used to his weird roommate, he'd fallen in line and the bookmarked apartments had gone unvisited.

Gradually he had come to anticipate and even appreciate the weirdness that was Sheldon Cooper.

They'd managed to get along and discover things in common and it wasn't that long before Sheldon had become his best friend, for more reasons than proximity and sanity.

The man was a genius and was oddly generous if you ignored the complete unwillingness to bend for anyone.

In short, Leonard became accustomed to the crazy which was possibly why he didn't notice Sheldon's initial forays into true madness.

It could also have had something to do with the fact that he was freezing to death.

Sheldon dragged them all to the North Pole to be a part of his groundbreaking research and they'd all agreed, some more heartily than others.

Howard, for instance, having to be dragged by his cologne bag whilst Leonard was more cautiously optimistic about the opportunity.

Three days in and they all agreed that it hadn't been the best idea in the world to have Sheldon and Howard share such a contained space.

The other two did their best to run interference; Leonard hid the screwed up napkins with the crossbow schematics scribbled on and Raj played endless games of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock with Sheldon.

It was all very tense and so the first time Sheldon shouted at Howard and called him 'Penny' they all chalked it up to the atmosphere.

They were wrong.

"Who drank my reconstituted milk?"

The accusation rang across the room with shrill definition and Leonard and Raj tensed.

Oh crap.

Leonard paused their scratchy pirated copy of Star Trek and turned to face the red-faced physicist, treading carefully.

"I don't think anyone would, Sheldon."

And they wouldn't. They might be geeks, they might ascribe to the many universes theory but none of them was actually insane.

"Oh, I think they did, Leonard."

Except Sheldon, obviously.

"My milk was on my shelf with my name clearly labeled on it and I marked where the level was and now almost two teaspoons of powder has gone. Vanished."

Leonard weakened. "Are you sure?"

"Am I sure, am I SURE?" Sheldon's voice slipped into decibels only the sleigh dogs could hear. "Why, no, Leonard, maybe penguins slipped in in the night and adjusted the level. Maybe they needed it for a penguin tea party and they couldn't milk a seal!"

Raj frowned. "Can you milk a seal?"

"You can, but you shouldn't." Howard shrugged.

"F.Y.I. That was sarcasm!" Sheldon gave them a death glare.

"We know," Howard snapped. "And we don't care. You are a crazy person."

His eyes flashed, "I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested."

"Not recently," Howard shot back. "I'm thinking that you might need a recheck."

"Well you're wrong, like always!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Guys?" Leonard tried to interject but they stood glaring at each other.

"It means that your latest calculations contained no less than three gradation errors and... and... you spelled monopolarization wrong."

"How can I spell it wrong? It's not even a word!"

"Ooh!" Raj jumped to his feet and raced for the outhouse.

"And now look what you've done to Raj!"

"Me, ME?"

"Yes, you and all because I borrowed a teaspoon of sugar."

"I knew it!" Sheldon's accent dropped to his deep southern. "You're the milk thief. I knew it was lighter and ya'll said I was crazy, well I ain't crazy. You can't be stealing my things, Penny, I've told you time and again. There is a clear structure to our things and--"

"Whoah, wait,"

Sheldon's eye twitched at being interrupted. "What?"

Howard stared at him. "You called me Penny."

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah, you did."

Sheldon took a deep breath. "I have an IQ of 187, if I called you Penny, don't you think I'd know it?"

Leonard held up his hand. "Uh, you kinda did, Sheldon."

Sheldon rounded on him.

"Or not, whatever."

Sheldon twitched again and held his precious milk sachet to his chest. "Stay away from my milk!"

He slunk away into the corner and started muttering to himself.

Leonard and Howard stared at each other uneasily. "Well, that was weird."

"Yeah."

There was a moment of silence. "Uh, do you think Raj remembered the flashlight?"

Leonard looked out at the darkness. "Well, if he gets lost at least he can write his directions in the snow."

–

It was the rustling that eventually woke Leonard up. He'd gotten used to the almost eerie silence of the North Pole after the constant buzz of Pasadena.

It was never silent in California; if there wasn't traffic going by then there was the constant hum of the fridge, the freezer, overhead lights or other electrical things.

Here there was nothing. No bird call, no electric, not even cell phone signal most of the time. It had taken some time to get used to the quiet which was why any sound was enough to wake him up.

He grabbed for his glasses and peered bleary eyed into the dark.

There was a tall figure standing by the doorway, slowly unlocking the massive bolts.

"Sheldon?"

The man said nothing and Leonard crawled out of his sleeping bag.

"Sheldon?"

By the time he'd managed to get to his feet and fight off the suddenly too small sleeping bag the door was open and an icy cold gust of wind blew into the room.

The sudden change in temperature woke the other two men.

"But Sir, I can do gym in my pants!" Howard shouted, opening his eyes quickly.

Raj stared at him oddly. "Dude?"

Howard waved it off and frowned. "Who left the door open?"

"It's Sheldon," Leonard grabbed his coat. "He went outside."

"But he had his pre-bedtime urination. He should be good until morning." Raj thought over his words and shuddered. "I've suddenly realized that we know far too much about Sheldon."

"Tell me about it."

"No, you don't understand. I think he went out without his coat."

"Really?" Howard stepped out of his bag and followed Leonard to the door. "Can we shut the door?"

"Howard!" Leonard gave him a look as they all stepped towards the open door staring out into the snow.

The station that they had made base camp against was situated in a small valley of ice, blocking out the winds that whipped and whistled throughout the wasteland.

Sheldon stood in front of one of those walls of ice, motionless.

"Sheldon?" Leonard called loudly.

"One minute. She's not answering."

The three men stared at each other.

Sheldon lifted his fist and knocked against the glacier three times.

"Penny?"

He knocked again.

"Penny?"

And three more knocks.

"Penny?"

The three physicists stared at the figure in the snow and then back at each other.

"Definitely time for retesting," Raj muttered.

Leonard wrung his hands together. "He's probably sleepwalking. You know his routine is precious. Well, Penny has become part of his routine and his subconscious is playing out the part that she can't be in because she's not here."

Howard looked at him. "Do you believe that?"

"Good god, no, he's cracked."

"So what do we do?" Raj asked shivering against the cold.

There was a beat.

"I still say we should shut the door."

"Howard!" Leonard rolled his eyes. He took a breath and stepped out into the snow. "Uh, Sheldon... Penny's not here."

Sheldon turned. "Oh, is she working? She didn't tell me her shift had changed."

"No," Leonard bit his lip. "She's just not here. In the North Pole. Where we are."

"Don't be ridiculous, Leonard. Of course she's here." Sheldon turned back to the glacier and knocked again.

Leonard flapped his arms and ducked into the shack. "He doesn't believe me. Guys, if we don't get him in soon, he's gonna freeze to death."

Howard rolled his eyes, "All right. Let me try." He stood at the door and peered out, glancing back quickly. "Are you sure we can't just--"

"Howard!"

He took a breath and leaned out. "Sheldon what are you doing? It's before 11am!"

Sheldon gasped and hurried back into the shack, slamming the door behind him. "Well, why didn't you say so."

–

The next day Sheldon berated them all for the snow tracks that were all over the floor and forced them to clear it all up.

"Bet you wished we'd just shut the door now," Howard muttered as he piled snow onto the dustpan.

–

The kettle whistled and Raj opened one eye.

"Leonard, it's your turn."

Leonard sighed and got to his feet heading over to where Sheldon stood in his dressing gown.

"Hey, buddy, what are you doing?"

Sheldon faced him, holding his Batman cup out. "I'm going over to Penny's. I need some hiney for my herbal tea."

Raj sniggered at Sheldon walked out the door.

"He meant honey." Leonard snapped.

"Sure," snorted Howard. "I'm thinking he actually misses Penny."

"Don't be stupid." Leonard said and peered out into the night. "You know I think he's losing his mind."

"And we're reaping all the benefits." Howard laughed off their looks. "Hey we've all seen iThe Wedding Singer/i, right?"

"Fine, but tomorrow, we station the dogs outside," Leonard said grabbing his snow shoes.

–

Leonard woke up face to face with one of the sledge dogs and snow piling up against the open door.

"This is not funny," he groused as he scampered out of the shack and grabbed Sheldon by the scruff of the neck.

–

"Raj, Howard, I think we need to bring Sheldon home. He's knocking on the glacier again."

–

Sheldon asked why Howard was putting an extra lock on the front door.

The three men glared at him and muttered something about thieving polar bears.

–

Knock, knock, knock

"Penny?

Knock, knock, knock

"Penny?"

Knock, knock, knock

"Penny?"

"Oh, for gods sake!"