I think the title really explains what is going to happen...

WARNING: character death

Disclaimer: The usual stuff

It was a regular day at the university, Sheldon was complaining about the newest comic not being up to his usual standard, Raj was fantasising about Bernadette and Leonard was eating but zoned out so he didn't hear anything that Sheldon was saying, this was usually the best way to eat lunch with him.

"Yep, I'm definitely not gay..." The usual comment from Raj before he went back to his pudding.

"As I was saying, Batman would never say anything like that, it's just not in his character!" Even though no one had been listening to Sheldon he had raved on and on for a good five minutes.

"Sorry Sheldon? What were you saying?" Leonard snapped out of his trance as he noticed that Sheldon had finished and said what he really shouldn't have.

"Well if you're not going to have the decency to listen the first time I don't see much point in repeating myself. Maybe I'll just have to find some new friends who want to listen to me." and he stood up and walked away.

"Should we go after him?" Raj asked but he didn't seem too bothered.

"Nah, he'll bounce back, he always does, I sleep in the same apartment as he does, he can't avoid me forever." Leonard focused back on his lunch. It wasn't too bad today, a little lacking in it's usual standards, but not awful.

"Ooh! Chocolate chips!" Raj exclaimed as he took another bite from his chocolate cake.

"Don't they always have chocolate chips?" Leonard looked at him patronisingly over the top of his glasses.

"Not always, today must be a really good day." He looked at his next mouthful, examining it for more chocolate chips. There was a slightly awkward silence for a couple of minutes before Sheldon reappeared again.

"Turns out everyone else in this place is a complete ass, no one wants to be friends with me... I wonder why that is?" he said as he put his tray back in it's previous place, and sat down to continue eating.

"Well it could be the fact that you're an annoying robot man who always has to get what he wants and you never thinks about anyone else but yourself." Leonard said simply and raised an eyebrow.

"There's no need to be harsh about it, I'm admittedly a little pushy but I'm not that bad." Sheldon said back a little offended. Leonard raised both his eyebrows in shock and looked at Sheldon with complete amazement.

"Dude, he's right. You're an awful person, we only hang out with you because Leonard would be homeless if we didn't." Raj said through a mouthful of pudding. And it was true, all of them were sick to the stomach with Sheldon, they wanted an excuse to ditch him as soon as possible.

"How long do you reckon Howard's gonna be? He's gonna miss the whole of lunch if he doesn't hurry up." Leonard wanted to change the subject as soon as possible and this seemed like the best way to change it.

"You can't just change the subject like that, this is a serious situation, we need to talk about it!" Sheldon said in surprise, he had no idea what he had done wrong, he was just behaving normally.

"What's to talk about, you're an annoying bastard and we would rather be friends with Kripke that you. End of." Leonard picked up his tray to to give back the cutlery... then the fire alarm went off.

"What? What's going on? That noise hurts my ears! Make it stop!" Sheldon put his hands over his ears to try and block the noise of the bell out, he was pulled up by Raj.

"Dude! We gotta get out of here! That bell means get out!" and with that he ran to join Leonard who was already halfway out the door.

"Wish I had one for the apartment for Penny." Sheldon remarked before he too made his way to the door. There was such a strong tide of people that he had trouble actually getting somewhere, and the fact that he couldn't remember what the assembly point was really didn't help, he just thought it best to follow everyone else.

When they were all outside and waiting for Howard, Bernadette and Amy joined them.

"Where's my Howie? Is he alright?" Bernadette asked with tears in her eyes.

"I'm sure he's fine, he's just held up." Leonard was trying to be comforting but even he couldn't hide the fear in his voice, he was sure of it, he had that horrible feeling in his gut that he only got when something really bad had happened or he had eaten too much Thai food. Then a fireman walked over to the group.

"Leonard Hoffsteader?" (Sorry if I spelt it wrong)

"Yeah? That's me." and he followed the fireman away from the group, what he heard next made his stomach plummet into his shoes. He walked back to the group with his head facing the floor to mask his eyes, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop himself from letting tears flood down his cheeks.

"Leonard? What's wrong?" Raj asked

"It was Howard that caused the explosion, they couldn't find the body, I'm sorry Bernadette, he's gone..." Leonard put a hand on her shoulder as she cried into Raj.

"Well, what an unfortunate turn of events! I wonder who's gonna die next?" Sheldon seemed amused by this, like it was all a prank.

"Sheldon! Do you even realise what's happening here? Howard's dead! Do you not understand that? Is this all some kind of a joke to you?" Raj yelled at him, it was not like Raj to get angry, but something was wrong with him. He wasn't crying either, to him, this was a dream, Howard was gone and Bernadette was his for the taking, things were too perfect... something was bound to go wrong sooner or later.

I hope you like this chapter! Review and tell me what you thought! It's really late here so sorry if it's bad.