It was a lovely and very sunny late afternoon in Pasadena, California. As almost every Friday a small amount of people had already gathered in apartment 4A of 2311 N Los Robles, still waiting for the rest to show up though.
Howard was sitting on one end of the sofa, his friend Sheldon on the other. Penny had made herself at home in the big chair that was placed right next to the couch and Leonard had taken the desk chair – as always since Penny had discovered her undying love for his usual chair.
They were waiting for their friends Rajesh, Bernadette and Amy to get back home with the Thai food they were planning on eating.
Leonard and Sheldon had lived in an apartment together as roommates for a very long time but tonight was the night – Leonard would tell him that he would move out together with his girlfriend Penny, who luckily just lived across the hall. Still, Leonard kind of felt bad. He knew that Sheldon wasn't an easy person at all and that he needed to live with someone who understood him and his rules. On the other hand, Leonard finally wanted to move in with his long-term girlfriend, who had finally agreed to share her apartment with him.
"What is taking them so long, I'm starving!" Howard sighed in frustration.
"Unlikely…" Sheldon commented. "Even though you're rather slim, your body fat is still enough to survive for… I'd say at least a few weeks."
Howard pulled his eyebrows down and slowly glanced over at his friend. "Can we play Halo?"
"Now? Why?" Sheldon eyed him confusedly.
"So I can legally shoot you!"
"Guys, easy" Leonard looked at them. He didn't need Sheldon in a naggy mood tonight, not with the news he had to deliver to his best friend.
"Are they getting the food at the usual Thai place?" Penny asked, twirling a strand of her long blond hair around her finger.
Leonard nodded and Penny pulled a face. "I don't really like their desserts. Can't we order that somewhere else? And please, not the Cheesecake Factory. We've all eaten through the whole menu there more than once."
"She has a point" Sheldon agreed and enthusiastically jumped up to scuffle over to his desk, where he instantly started typing around on his keyboard.
No one asked him what he did because they all knew better. Whenever you asked Sheldon something, he either came up with an answer that would make you feel like you were a blithering idiot or a lecture that could last up to twenty minutes and was hard to follow. Penny had helped herself to a can of diet coke from the fridge, while Leonard wrote a message to Raj, and Howard seemingly randomly wiped his index finger over his iPhone screen.
"What kind of dessert do you feel like, Penny?"
The blond sank back into the chair and turned her head back to Sheldon. "I don't know. Something heavy… greasy… creamy..."
"Well, you can afford it" Leonard smiled and eyed his girlfriend over his nerdy glasses.
"Aww, sweetie, no need for those kind of compliments anymore. I am already having sex with you!" Penny slightly squeezed his chin between her thumb and her index finger, before turning back to a now obviously excited Howard.
"Guys, exciting news from Nerd-Topia! There's a new series of 'Warlords of Ka'a'!" With wide-open eyes Howard scrolled down on his phone. "A zombie expansion!"
"No way!" Leonard immediately started typing around on his phone wildly and Penny rolled her eyes and took another sip from her coke. It wasn't always easy being the only normal one in a group of nerds. Since she was bored, she decided she could as well listen to Sheldon, who was still occupied with whatever he was researching on his computer.
"Shelly, what are you looking for?"
"Dessert that will be delivered. And how often do I need to remind you to not call me Shelly…" The lanky physicist sent a death glare her way but it collided with Penny's angelic innocent smile and ricocheted.
"Fifty bucks? That seems an awful lot for just zombies…" Howard sighed while his look was still fixated on his phone screen.
"True… but what if we chip in?"
Sheldon turned around with his chair, eyebrows pulled down. "For a card game?"
"You know we have to save money! ComicCon is coming up!" Leonard replied and Sheldon seemed to think it over quickly before he apparently seconded the motion.
The door opened and a heavily packed Raj stumbled into the apartment towards the little kitchen. Bernadette and Amy entered right behind him, both only carrying one white plastic bag each.
"Told you we got too much" Bernadette grunted when Raj heaved the heavy big brown bag onto the kitchen counter and almost dropped everything.
"With Penny here we never know how much food we need" Amy mumbled right behind her friend, before she slapped on an innocent smile and tiptoed to catch a glare at the blond woman. "Hey bestie!"
"Hey…" Penny apparently had heard her.
Bernadette quickly went over to Howard and planted a kiss on his lips. The two of them had been married for over a year now and still seemed as happy as ever. Something that especially Amy was secretly jealous about. Her relationship with Sheldon seemed to have stopped in progression, which was rather bad considering they never had had coitus or any other sexual interactions happen between them.
Raj and Amy quickly unloaded the bags and carried the little white boxes over to the couch table before everyone looked for theirs and took it.
Amy handed everyone either a fork or chop sticks and placed herself in the middle of the sofa – right next to Sheldon's spot.
"We're starting to eat" Leonard mentioned slightly tense which had less to do with the fact that Sheldon still had not joined them but more with the news he had to tell him later on. He was just happy that all of his friends were here to support him, most of all Amy. If anyone was capable of calming Sheldon down after the news, it was her.
"Just a moment" Sheldon eyed his keyboard, the screen and pressed the Enter key.
Everyone at the table started eating and passing around soy sauce.
"Have you heard? There's a new 'Warlords of Ka'a' being released tomorrow!" Howard slightly elbowed Raj who turned to look at his best friend and have his jaw drop. "Shut your ass! I guess that means we're going to the Comic Book Store tomorrow, even though it's not Thursday!"
They all waited for an objection from Sheldon's side but it remained silent. He apparently was pretty occupied with whatever he was doing.
"I can take you guys" Penny mumbled with her mouth full while shoveling one more piece of chicken into it. "I heard that a new manicure shop opened not far from there and I'd like to see if it's worth the pain in the ass of taking you four nerds all the way across Pasadena!"
Bernadette grinned and dipped her fork back into the rice.
"Oh, dear Lord…", it suddenly sounded from Sheldon's desk. The group turned to face him.
Sheldon hectically clicked around, pushed his chair back and got up, before he finally joined the others with a rather pale face.
"So, what did you order for dessert?" Penny asked and looked at the lanky physicist.
"Nothing" He mumbled.
"What do you mean, 'nothing'?"
Sheldon sat down on his usual spot. "Well, turns out that apparently creampie is not a pastry… and the internet is a very nasty place."
Penny spit out the rest of the chicken she still had had in her mouth and Howard and Leonard choked on their water simultaneously.
"Anyway" Bernadette kept patting her husband on the back so he could catch his breath again. "I'd like to tag along if you don't mind. My nails could use some polish!"
Penny, still watery-eyed from spitting out half her food, nodded. "Ames?"
"I'd like to come! But only if I don't have to take care of Sheldon!" She realized that this had been a bad idea to say the same second the words had left her mouth.
Leonard, Howard and Raj moaned and rolled their eyes, Sheldon eyeing all of them quizzically.
"Thank you, Amy" Leonard mumbled with a sour smile.
"What do you mean by having to take care of me? Is that another sexual innuendo I fail to understand?" Sheldon grumpily looked at all his friends and Penny couldn't help but grin from one ear to another while staring into the little white takeout box as if she'd never seen anything more interesting.
"We're down the rabbit hole" The experimental physicist placed his food back onto the couch table and folded his hands in his lap. "Sheldon… as you know, I've been with Penny for quite a while…"
Sheldon nodded. "And as you know, I still think you could have landed a better catch."
Penny tossed two fingers full of rice grains at him and poked her tongue out, as the lanky physicist stared at her in annoyance.
"Anyway, I thought… I mean, we thought… it might be time for… I mean, not time for. Not like I want to get rid of anyone. Or you. Or the situation. I mean, we just thought…"
Penny looked at her boyfriend with her mouth hanging half open and her eyebrows pulled down. What the hell was he trying to do here?
"He wants to move in with Penny!" Howard ended Leonard's awkward speech.
"HOWARD!" The petite blonde next to him elbowed him so hard, that he quietly screeched and rubbed his ribs.
Sheldon's jaw dropped a few inches and he stared from Leonard to Howard and back to Leonard. Then it took a second, before the physicist shrugged and kept eating his food. All of the friends exchanged insecure looks.
"Sweetie, are you okay?" Penny was the first one to ask carefully.
"Well, I am not eagerly excited that you're moving in with us. On the other hand, you're probably the one who – besides Leonard – is most familiar with the Roommate Agreement so I guess it's fine." Sheldon shrugged and smiled at the blond woman.
"No, Sweetie… Leonard thought about moving into my apartment…"
Sheldon looked up again, completely confused now. "But, won't that be a little too small for the three of us?"
Howard started mumbling silent curses while massaging his templates and his wife rubbed his arm to keep him from bursting out once again.
"Sheldon" Amy spoke calmly and quietly. "Leonard is moving out. Without you."
Now it seemed to click in Sheldon's head and his disbelieving look streaked his girlfriend. She bit the inside of her lower lip and looked at him as if she was sure he'd burst into tears any second. It was dead silent in the apartment.
"I told you we have to be careful!" Leonard hissed at his girlfriend who spooned the last few mouthfuls of rice into herself and then sat up.
Everyone was kind of worried and uneasy. After the breaking news, Sheldon had gotten up and rushed into his bedroom.
"Please, guys, let's see this from a logic point of view. Sheldon is over thirty years of age, he should be able to handle this!" Howard had put his hands up as if he wanted to stop them all from overreacting but it just caused more trouble.
Everyone felt the need to spill out their thoughts at the same time and the result was a mix of words and voices, from which nothing explicitly could be filtered.
"Alright, everyone, I'll go talk to him!" Amy finally raised her voice over the excited gibberish of her friends.
The voiced all muted and everyone looked at Amy.
"Are you sure?" Bernadette already seemed to feel sorry for her.
"I messed it up, I'm going" Amy declared before getting up, straightening out her skirt and walking over, ready to put her head into the lion's mouth.
Sheldon looked up from the paper stack in his hands, when he heard a silent knock on his door. He only said "Come in" when he heard Amy's voice.
The neurobiologist slowly opened the door and peeked in carefully. When she was sure he wasn't going to freak out about her entering, she stepped in and closed the door. Sheldon sat on the floor, his back leaned against the surface of his bed.
Amy went over to him and sat down next to him before she eyed what he held in his hands. It was the Roommate Agreement Leonard had signed years ago after moving in with him.
"He won't be out of the world" Amy tried to comfort her boyfriend but Sheldon just shook his head. Apparently that was not what he wanted to hear right now.
Amy was glad she had come to his room to talk to him. Wolowitz would have found that all childish and would have screamed at him probably. After all, Leonard would only be living a few steps away.
But Amy knew Sheldon better than that. She knew that in his head he already had formed horror scenarios of a new roommate he had to choose since he couldn't bring up the money for the whole rent all alone. Amy knew what stressed Sheldon out and this was one of the things that probably was hardest for him. He hadn't been lucky with his former roommates, if Amy recalled it correctly one had even sprayed something really rude on the bedroom wall.
"Do you know when he will move out?" Sheldon whispered and looked up.
Amy looked straight into his eyes and shook her head half-heartedly. "Not exactly. But pretty soon, I suppose."
"How can he leave me alone with all of this?" Sheldon threw his arm up in frustration and let it fall back onto the Roommate Agreement.
"Hey, I am sure he's going to help you" Amy quickly tried to calm him down. "And I can help you, too, if you want."
Sheldon nodded. "That would be nice."
Amy smiled and then they remained silent for a few minutes. Sheldon felt well in her presence and that she just kept sitting next to him made him feel somewhat less anxious and nervous about what was happening.
"Hey, how about I'll go get you cobbler from your favorite restaurant?" Amy proposed while eyeing her boyfriend from aside.
He looked at her in astonishment and then gave her one of his lopsided smiles that Amy loved so much. "That would be really nice. Can I come with you?"
Not even waiting for an answer, he already stood up and then held out a hand for his girlfriend.
She took it and he pulled her up.
