Hi! This is a reimagining of TBBT Season 2's The Vartabedian Conundrum, focusing on a relationship between Penny and Sheldon. It's a rewrite for me of an earlier fic, with a bit of an extra twist. For the record, I do not own The Big Bang Theoty and am making no money off this bit of fun.

It was not a particularly strange sight for Penny to walk into the apartment without knocking, and not even all that strange for her to do it near the time of the month where her bills were due, as she often failed to restock her coffee supply that week, and never felt like getting dressed and driving to the nearest Starbucks. Therefore, Leonard didn't know how the possibility of a blonde in need of caffeine might appear when Stephanie was getting ready to leave.

"Out of coffee. Need coffee." The blonde who vaguely resembled something from a Romero movie said, wandering in. Unluckily, she seemed to perk up quite a bit when spoken too. Leonard didn't like the look on Stephanie's face, and he had a crawling fear that this was about to go very badly for him.

"Uh, hello..." Stephanie said, her mind suddenly jumping to conclusions at the lithe blonde in her underwear walking into the apartment as if she lived there.

"Hi!" Penny said with a smile. "Stephanie, right?"

"Mhmm...and ...and..and you are?" Stephanie asked, trying not to think of cheating boyfriends in the past.

"I'm Penny, I live across the hall." The blonde gestures to the door, as though Stephanie wouldn't understand and it sets her teeth on edge, but she keeps her temper. "Heard a lot about you."

"Really?" Stephanie asked, with forced joviality, looking at the boys who were standing in the kitchen. "I haven't heard a thing about you." When she looked to Leonard for some reassurance, he just looked at his pancake batter, and Stephanie felt the need to push him. "Leonard, why haven't I heard a thing about this woman who lives across the hall and comes into your apartment in the morning...in her underwear?"

Leonard felt his stomach rise up in his throat as Penny just pranced herself over between the two men. He glanced at her and then back at Stephanie. "Uh..um...Well, she's heard about you because we're y'know, involved, and you haven't heard about her because..." He trailed off and looked at Penny for a moment.

"Because I'm Sheldon's girlfriend." Penny finished, apparently to both Leonard and Stephanie's shock. Penny plucked a blueberry off of the green plate, where Sheldon had been artfully arranging them with scientific precision for application of pancakes.

Sheldon gave a great sigh of longsuffering. "Penny, we have discussed you touching my food."

"I know, sweetie." Penny said, placing a hand on his cheek, as she filled her coffee mug.

"Right," Leonard said, not sure why Penny was covering for him or how realistic such a relationship was. "Anyway you have a gallblader to remove, and I have to get in the shower and Penny has clothes to put on, so..." He started pushing Stephanie towards the door with reminders of her day, before Sheldon remembered his dislike of deception and started developing tics.

Stephanie was confused, especially since Sheldon had been so...well, Sheldon around her, but the pair did keep trading looks, and Sheldon had only continued to place blueberries on his plate, and given his precise instructions on handling pasta the other night, that seemed odd enough to be true. "Well, it was very nice to meet you."

"It nice to finally meet you too." Penny answered, with a Nebraska smile.

Leonard said goodbye to his girlfriend and looked back at Sheldon and Penny, who were standing there as if nothing strange was going on, Sheldon cleaning up the spilled batter with his usual single-mindedness. "You didn't have to do that." He said to them.

"Well, really Leonard, if I don't clean up your mess, than who will?" Sheldon replied.

Leonard opened his mouth as if to explain what he meant, and then shook his head. It was too much to deal with in the morning. He just headed for the shower with a sigh.

At lunch, after complaining about the too-itchy pants, Leonard had to explain what had happened that morning. Howard interjected with his own colorful commentary, wanting to know what Penny had been wearing, and informing him that he had passed up a "prime threesome opportunity." He ignored this and plowed on with the story, getting to the important part. "And then Penny says she's Sheldon's girlfriend!"

"Way to dodge a bullet there, brother." Howard said, with a shake of his head. "Did she buy it?"

"She seemed to." Leonard admitted. "I thought for a minute my relationship was over."

"What did Sheldon do when Penny said it?" Raj asked, curious.

"He just yelled at her for taking a blueberry from his plate and put a new one on." Leonard said with a shrug. "I don't think his programming knew how to react."

"You're sure they're not dating?" Raj asked. He would have expected Sheldon to declare the plate contaminated and get a new one, or at least wash it thoroughly.

"Of course I'm sure!" Leonard replied, with some irritation. "It's Penny and Sheldon for god's sake!"

Later that night, as the boys wereplaying Three-Dimensional Chess, Penny walked in, thankfully not in her underwear, and went straight to Sheldon's door.

Three knocks. "Sheldon."

Three knocks. "Sheldon."

Three knocks. "Sheldon."

The door opened, and Sheldon looked out at the blonde. "Hello Penny. Is there something you require?"

"Sheldon, come to the comic book store with me." Penny asked. "Please?"

"Why?" Sheldon replied, in confusion. "Wednesday is Comic Book Night. It's not Wednesday."

Penny did a little nervous dance. "Because, some of the guys at the store are creepy, and my Green Arrow Black Canary Wedding Extravaganza finally came in."

Sheldon heaved a great sigh. "I don't know why you insist on purchasing that Special Edition, as you are not a completionist and dislike Green Arrow as a choice of bridegroom for Black Canary ever since you borrowed my Silver Age comics."

"Because, I'm hoping Batman crashes the wedding and gets the girl like he should." Penny replied, grinning as Sheldon pulled on his jacket. "Come on, Sheldon."

"Very well." Sheldon agreed, and the pair left the apartment, leaving a trio of slack-jawed scientists behind them, staring at the door.

"Dude, since when does Penny read comics?" Howard asked.

"I don't know." Leonard replied, having a sudden image of Penny dressed like Black Canary in his mind's eye.

"Since when does Sheldon loan out Silver Age comics?" Howard wondered, considering if he would be able to convince the neurotic genius to let him borrow one.

"I don't know." Leonard replied, worriedly. Sheldon guarded his comics very closely.

"Are you sure they're not dating?" Raj asked again, becoming more convinced of it than he was at lunch.

"I'm sure!" Leonard snapped, but somewhere, in his mind, there was a little kernel of doubt.