The silence in the air tastes like anger and recriminations and its all Sheldon can do not to poke his tongue out at the figure storming ahead of him. Not that she'd notice, or care. But it would make himself feel better for a nano-second; until the reality of their current situation crashed down on him again, something he's deliberately not thinking of, preferring to concentrate on sand in his shoes and the sun on his neck.
As it is, he sends her retreating back a death glare and hurries to catch up, nimbly stepping between crates and boxes, dodging people left and right, trying to keep the soft blue jacket in view. His height is a bonus here, as is his slim width as he weaves in and out of short angry people determined to separate him from his friend.
Despite his long strides he can't quite catch up with her furious pace and he reaches out one long arm to snag her shirt.
"Penny!"
She whirls around, thunder on her face and fire in her eyes. "What?"
She's mad as hell but at least she's stopped and he can finally catch a breath and ask her what he's been wanting to ask her since he woke with a mouthful of sand and a headache the size of Texas.
"Where are we going?"
Her eyes widen and her voice whips out, heads turn but a forceful stare sends them scurrying. "Where are we going? Where? WHERE? I don't know, Sheldon!" She opens her arms as if to encompass the whole world. "I mean I've totally been here before, I know exactly where I'm going."
He stiffens. "Sarcasm isn't helpful right now."
"No?" scorn fills her voice. "You know what else isn't helpful right now, Sheldon? You! You're supposed to be this complete genius guy and so far I'm not seeing it."
Sheldon lets go of her sleeve but edges a little closer fearing that, in her anger (unjustified, unwarranted, but possibly deserved), she might just turn and hare off back into the crowd and he'd never find her again. The thought fills him with more terror than usual and he swallows the instinctive response to her biting wit and takes another breath. And another.
She has a point and it sits wrong in his chest. He is the smart one (IQ immeasurable by current standards and yet can't see what's in front of him until...) He's the one with the plans and the know how and he should be the one that makes her feel better. He has become accustomed to being Penny's knight in shining armor and coming to her rescue. Yet right now he can't help her, is too close to falling to pieces. It's like the driving thing all over again.
Even in her fury Penny can see that Sheldon is fighting with himself, fighting against the innate tendency to open his mouth and insert both feet and she wants to cut him some slack. This is not his fault but she can't help but be majorly freaked out herself and in no mood to placate her resident crazy.
"Can't you think of something?" she pleads, "Anything?"
Her low voice is almost lost in the deafening roar of people and its defeated tone just makes him huddle his shoulders.
"I'm sorry, Penny."
And suddenly her anger is gone, like a wisp of smoke leaving behind it only the vague sense of unease and trepidation. She reaches out her hand and touches his long fingers, a ghostly caress more for comforts sake than any real need to touch him (although that is there too).
"Me too, sweetie." She rubs her arms despite not feeling cold and glances around at the myriads of loud, smelly obnoxious denizens of this slice of the market; each toting their wares with harsh syllables and lyrical tongues.
So many people crammed into a space that defies reasoning and logic, one of the reasons Sheldon is two breaths away from a meltdown of Hiroshima proportions.
His fingers subconsciously try to catch hers as they drift back to her side, his palm curling in on itself at his failure as she tucks her hand in her pocket.
"I have no idea where I'm going, Sheldon," she confesses, "to be honest I was looking for somewhere that looked like a bar."
He bit back the barb that it was alcohol that got them into this mess in the first place. Her expression almost dared him to mock her for her need of intoxicating liquor but, for once, Sheldon would make sure his Cuba Libre was slutty enough to make her blush.
"A valid idea, Penny, but for one thing. We have no form of currency with which to trade. Unless you wish to sell--"
Her eyes narrow. "Sheldon!"
"Your watch, I was going to say," he ignores the threat in her voice, the distaste at the idea. He would find some way so that that was not an option (never an option).
She shivers and looks at the cute watch Leonard had bought for her last Valentines day, before they broke up and things got weird. "Yeah, I guess we could sell it."
"But then spending money on frivolities like alcohol would be farcical when you consider that we may be here for some time and will probably need to find some form of habitation."
Even though right now Penny needs brandy more than bed she can see the logic in what Sheldon had to say. He's the one with the brains after all. He's the one who was supposed to know what to do in situations like this and she should listen to him-- despite being pissed at being there in the first place.
"Okay, plan of action," she takes a breath, her chest inflating slowly reminding her to calm down. "We find a fence and hock the bling, then we check for local cribs and find a place to crash."
Sheldon blinks at her.
His innocence causes the first smile of the day. "Sell the watch and find a room."
"Oh." He nods. "A good plan, Penny. It is most efficacious to have a goal, whether short term or long term."
"Short term, sleep. Long term, try and find a way back home, okay?" She straightens her shoulders, pleased that they now have a plan. "So we need to find a shady character."
They glance around, from the huddled guy selling rat meat to the grubby kids racing down the alleys, from the screaming baby in lurid green to the woman of negotiable affection, all they can see are shady characters.
"Excuse me," Sheldon edges over to the man selling rat. "We are looking for what is commonly referred to as a 'fence', or perhaps a pawn shop?"
The rat man licks his cracked lower lip. "Duibuqi?"
Sheldon frowns. "I'm unacquainted with this dialect."
"Quelle surprise!" Penny quips and immediately regrets it as he turns hurt eyes to her.
"I am trying, Penny."
She bites her lip and looks at rat man who is staring appreciatively with more than a passing interest at her chest. She crosses her arms and glares at him.
Sheldon mimes giving and taking something from Penny. "A dealer, trader?"
"Ah!" the rat man's face clears-- of confusion, not lesions. "Bad-ja."
"Bad-ja, what's that mean?" Penny looks up at Sheldon who simply shrugs.
"Bad-ja," the man cuffs a pile of grubby clothes which unfold into a small boy shooting such hate filled looks at being disturbed that he could only be rat-man's son.
Rat man boots him. "Heiboi. Geddup ntekemta Bad-ja."
Penny leans forward, positive that she's just understood that. "Sheldon, was that English?"
"No variation I've ever heard of." Sheldon sniffs as the boy motions for them to come after him and they reluctantly follow the scurrying bag of rags. "Your brain just probably translated the words to make the most sense to you."
"Maybe," Penny sighs heavily, "because things have made so much sense today."
The bard shorts his own temper. "For the last time, Penny, I did inform you that I was currently working on something sensitive."
"Sensitive is nuclear power or a new stealth bomber," Penny bites out as she ducks a flying metal object, staring it down as it zooms overhead, sensors flashing wildly at her.
Something about it strikes her as incongruous but her mind is on her argument with Sheldon-- as always. "Sensitive is not modifying someone else's time machine!"
They enter what seems to be washer-woman's alley with thick swaths of fabric hanging between buildings; not any noticeably cleaner than those their street urchin was wearing. Sheldon shoves them aside in disgust and vows to take a bath in bleach when he gets home.
"I had the components working Penny, I did not expect you to drop an entire bottle of whiskey over the controls."
She stops dead, hands on her hips as she faces off with the taller man. "Oh, so now this is my fault?"
Sheldon sighs wearily. "All I'm saying is that creeping around someone's apartment uninvited is asking for trouble."
"Maybe you should heed your own advice Mr Your-room-is-full-of-entropy-and-i-can't-sleep-unless-i-break-in-and-tidy. Double standards, Sheldon!"
"Yes, but my foray into your room resulted in freshness and an aesthetically pleasing organizational structure whereas yours apparently has us catapulted through the known universes to this-" he waves his arms wildly "-den of iniquity and filth."
"Bite me."
"Unsanitary."
"Yeah, well," Penny fumes, "I hope you get the plague."
He opens his mouth to reply when a small hand tugs insistently at his flash t-shirt. He squeals and shakes it off like a girl with a spider. Penny grins..
"Bad-ja," the boy from earlier rolls his eyes. "Heem tiswai."
This time it's Sheldon who pauses, he almost recognized that. "Perhaps some primitive form of English."
They edge through the final curtain of clothes and stop in their tracks.
In front of them are ships.
Spaceships.
Ships to go into outer space.
Honest to god spaceships looking every bit as bruised and battered as vintage cars. Silver and gold and gleaming and scarred and stained and twisted and undeniably used.
Space ships.
"Primitive?" Penny gasps. "We're not in the past, Sheldon. I think we're in the future." Suddenly the flying metal disc makes sense. She'd seen it but it didn't register. Now she wishes she'd paid more attention. Flying discs, ships. They were not back in cavemen days.
Sheldon, shell shocked and stunned, says nothing.
The boy scampers up a nearby pole and leans over the metal. He points to a small building close by.
"Bad-ja."
"Yeah," Penny glances up, does a double take. "Hey, Sheldon?"
He still doesn't move, transfixed by the thrumming engines and masses of people moving in and out of Space-ships. Space. Ships. Ships that shouldn't exist in his world of laundry and Thai Pad and yet are right there, like a TV show come to life to mock his carefully ordered reality. If a hoard of ravening barbarians were to race past now, Sheldon wouldn't be surprised. (horrified and mentally scarred for life, but not surprised).
"Sheldon, I think I know where we are."
"How could you possibly know that, Penny?" He swings around irritated.
She points upwards. "Because I can read."
They glare at the sign.
"Welcome to Persephone Space Port: Eavesdown Docks. Enjoy your stay."
Penny bites her lip. "Don't count on it."