Knock knock knock,
"Penny,"
Knock knock knock,
"Penny,"
Knock knock knock,
"Penny,"
Penny sighs heavily, puts down the glass of wine in her hand, and steps across her living area to open the door.
"What up, Wackadoodle," she asks tiredly, leaning against the doorframe.
Sheldon starts slightly, his blue eyes wide, voice light with something like wonder, "You haven't called me that in years!"
His face is alive and open, and Penny wonders when she stopped really looking at him. Or maybe he hadn't really been there for her to see lately?
"Haven't I?"
He shakes his head, a tiny smile playing about his lips, dancing in the corners of his eyes. "Not since May eleven, two thousand and twelve, at precisely six thirty two in the evening."
His pedantic recounting down to the very minute makes her smile, relaxing a little into her skin. He is familiar, her Sheldon, her Doctor Wackadoodle.
"Well, I'll try and remember to do it more often," she smiles indulgently and steps back, inviting him in with her movement away from the doorway.
"Alright," he allows, as he follows her.
She sits on the couch and he beside her, perching on the edge, still never quite comfortable out of the comfort zone of his apartment, his spot.
She picks up the glass of wine, and misses the way he frowns as he watches her. She doesn't see much of anything these days, unless it's through a haze of alcohol, all the edges of the world sanded down to a more palatable smoothness. (Her failure is bearable when she can't feel her face).
"To what do I owe this pleasure, Sheldon?"
He shrugs a little, slightly hunched about his shoulders, makes an indeterminate noise as he examines the still-cluttered surface of her coffee table. "I hadn't visited in some time, and I thought you might enjoy some company."
Penny stifles a snort of laughter and pins him with a disbelieving look, "Really?"
Sheldon straightens, eyes meeting hers, and says sombrely, "Yes. Really."
"Okaaaay," she is doubtful as she refills her glass, but Sheldon always comes to his point eventually. Pushing him just makes him obstinate. "Would you like something to drink? I've got water, orange juice, soda, and tea."
"Water, thank you."
She makes her way to the kitchen, pours him a glass of bottled water, and returns to her place on the couch. He is holding something in his long-fingered hands, something small that he turns over and over, the pad of his thumb rotating it smoothly. She peers closer under the guise of placing the glass on the table in front of him, ducks back into herself, back to her side of the couch, as she realises it is her engagement ring. She doesn't want to talk about that. About the fact that every night she's not with Leonard she takes the ring off and pours herself a glass wine, relishing the feel of her fingers against the smooth cool glass, without the band of metal separating skin from bliss.
"So..." she begins, awkward and not sure how to interact with him any more. This isn't the Sheldon she used to know. He's contorted himself (reluctantly) into something socially acceptable, and not at all authentic. She never would have imagined he could be anything but him. As it turns out she was wrong.
He doesn't move, doesn't look up, doesn't make strange, unnatural small talk. He came to her apartment without a gift of baked goods, but he triple knocked and she is familiar enough with stiff awkwardness that it is practically a comfort now.
"How's Amy?" she asks leadingly- slowly because she doesn't really want to know. She loves her 'bestie', but she never has been comfortable with her relationship with Sheldon for some reason. It always struck her as vaguely unhealthy (not that she has any right to comment- her own relationships have never exactly been exemplary beacons of health).
He looks up then, still playing her ring between his fingers, and smiles half-heartedly. Her heart breaks a little, because she remembers a time when he would never have smiled unless he meant it. Felt it.
"Amy is well. She is studying the effects of alcohol withdrawal symptoms on Rhesus Macaques."
"Well, good for her, I guess," Penny tries not to think about the animals involved Amy's trials, and focuses on Sheldon in order to push the sad images away.
The silence resumes, and Penny begins to wonder in earnest at Sheldon's sudden appearance at her door. Why is he here? She thinks maybe he has something he wants to talk about, but he is making no moves to bring it up. He seems to be entranced by her blank tv screen, absently tracing the corners of the diamond in his hands. She almost breaks the silence to ask him why he's here, but she can't bring herself to. This is the first chance she's had in a long while to just spend time with her friend (her best friend? She wonders when his presence in her life faded enough that she stopped thinking of him with that singular affection she holds for him).
"Penny," he pauses, glancing down at the ring, eyes wide – he seems startled to find himself holding it - "I have a favour to ask."
He doesn't elaborate, so she says "Okay," and waits for him to continue.
He doesn't look at her, just shuffles closer to her on the couch, til their knees touch, and she stays very still in order not to startle him. Something is happening, and for the first time in a long time she wants to put down the alcohol and be perfectly present in the moment. He places the ring on the coffee table carefully and turns his body towards her, leans into her space, braces himself against the back of the couch with one hand. The other lands lightly on her shoulder, unsure but steady, a thunder-clap on her skin. He is so close she can see herself in his eyes, and she stays perfectly still, holding her breath as she waits for this to play itself out.
He pauses, hovering an inch from her lips, blue eyes dart to hers, checking to see if she is going to pull away. She doesn't. Makes herself utterly blank, afraid any reaction with startle him out of this... whatever this is.
He closes the distance, and his lips are soft and dry, chaste but moving with absolute focus. She draws a shaky breath in between the petal-light brushes, struggles not to melt into him, bury her fingers in his hair, and drag him deeper, deeper, until they are no longer two separate beings. Her skin sparks and tingles, and she presses just a little closer, but he is pulling back, blush high on his cheeks, eyes bright and determinedly not looking at her. He takes a deep, unsteady breath, and stands.
"Thank you, Penny."
And then he is gone, brisk but not bolting, back to his fortress of (semi)solitude, and she slumps against the back of the couch, eyes wide, dumbstruck, blank with shock.
"Holy crap on a cracker."