Leslie bought her coffee and pastry and started across the cafeteria, planning to eat in the lab.

"Leslie! You're back!" someone called out. Great. Chitchat.

She sighed and looked around, and then had to shake her head to dislodge the slight feeling of deja-vu.

Hofstader, Wolowitz, Koothrapali and Cooper were sitting just a few feet away. Leslie scanned them wearily, her eyeballs jangling slightly from having to look at Howard's plaid shirt next to Raj's argyle vest. Across from them, Sheldon and Leonard were doing almost equally badly, albeit in bigger color blocks. Was that...it was. Leonard was still wearing the same hoodie he'd lived in when they were dating, over five years ago.

"Hi guys. How's it going?" She paused for effect then nodded at Sheldon. "Dumbass."

He scowled at her, lost for words.

"Good, good," Leonard grinned. "How was teaching in Singapore?"

Leslie shrugged. "The heat was a nice preface to the winter doing research in Antarctica, which was a good counterpoint to the six months I just spent running a beach bar outside Antananarivo. A bit of a lost weekend, that."

Sheldon snorted. "Like your entire career, perhaps?"

"Oooh, burn," Leslie said. "I think I would have stayed there, but I woke up one morning, untangled myself from the lithe bodies that had shared my bed that night, and as I stepped out onto the veranda, the way the sunlight scattered on the water led to an epiphany in quantum optics." She sighed. "I tried, but I could no longer stifle the agonies of my intellect in the simple pleasures of sand, sun and sex. So, yes, i'm back."

There were a few seconds of silence.

"I just got back from the North Sea, with the Stephen Hawking expedition," Leonard said.

"Right, I kept up," she said sympathetically. "No supporting evidence for the hypothesis, huh?"

Leonard looked down into his salad. "We're still going through the data."

"Good luck with that." Leslie toasted them with her coffee and left, shaking her head. It almost made her feel good, to think there was one thing in life that would never shift under her feet, no matter how far she went or how long it took her to come back. Even if that thing was four guys at a cafeteria table.

"I have got to tap that." Raj's eyes were locked on Leslie Winkle's pert, retreating ass.

Howard snorted. "Like you have a chance with Leslie Winkle."

"Both of you did," Raj said, looking from Howard to Leonard.

Leonard's eyebrows climbed above the rim of his glasses. "She went through us both like a hippopotamus through a kindergarden."

Raj nodded knowingly. "That's because you're both hopeless romantics. Leslie was too much woman for you. Me, I'll nail her like a sign to the wall and leave her wanting more."

"Right, you're the love-em-and-leave-em macho Casanova at this table," Howard said.

"Process of attrition, gentlemen," Raj said.

Leonard looked up, considered Howard and then Sheldon, then shrugged. "He might be right. But you still need to actually get the date."

"I can talk to her now." Raj thought about it. "Really, you've been lucky all these years I couldn't talk to women. You'd never have gotten anywhere."

He straightened the collar of his shirt, stood, and strolled away after Leslie in a poor imitation of a louche swagger.

"Sheldon, you gonna drink that water?" Howard asked.

"Why wouldn't I?" Sheldon looked up in confusion.

"We're going to need something to pour on him when he comes back here in a minute, crashed and burned."

"Now, that's not a certainty." Sheldon raised his fork to make a point. "Leslie Winkle has always shown a tendency towards sexual promiscuity. I don't see why Raj is a worse prospect than either of you."

Leonard met Howard's eyes for that uncomfortable moment when one man is forced to recognize another as a sexual being.

Fortunately, it was cut short by Raj, dashing back in to the cafeteria and coming to a skidding halt by their table. "Tonight," he panted, grinning like a fool. "Eight. Coffee. Leslie."

"Huh," Howard said. "Sheldon was right about a woman."

Leslie waited for Raj at the entrance to Leonard's building. No surprise, to find Raj still spending more time here than at home. If only she could find someone to bet that Howard was up there too.

The door opened and she turned, expecting Raj, but it was a bespectacled woman in a striped cardigan. Sheldon Cooper followed her, a few steps behind.

"Leslie," he said. "Raj will be down in a minute for your date."

The woman peered at Leslie. "Have fun," she declared. Her voice seemed to be trying very hard to convey friendliness. "Raj is a swell fellow." Her body language, on the other hand, suggested a more analytical curiosity. Like a dissectionist.

"Don't worry, I'm going to show him a time he'll never forget," Leslie said.

"I'm sure he'll try very, very hard." Sheldon said and started down the street. "Come on, Amy, we'll be late for the movie."

The woman - Amy - shrugged, shot her a grin, and caught up with Sheldon. They walked away together, already deep in some argument Leslie couldn't bother listening to. Who would ever have thought the guys would make another friend?

"Hi Leslie!" Raj finally appeared, grinning blissfully. He wore a mustard colored blazer instead of his usual jacket and smelled like an accident in the perfume section of a Duty Free, but otherwise looked exactly like he did at work. Ah, an eager nerd. Leslie was in her element. Being back here wasn't so bad.

"Hi."

"So, there's this great little new cafe, just around the corner, they have this chai-"

"How about we just head straight to your place?" Leslie suggested. She didn't really want coffee.

"Straight to...you mean...that is..."

"I mean sex."

Raj stared at her with an expression precisely half-way between terror and desire, for exactly four seconds. "Ok, let's go." He offered her his arm, and Leslie shrugged and took it. Why not, if he liked that sort of thing?