THURSDAY

"I'm sorry." Penny struggled as she pulled on her shoes. "I made these plans before I knew you were coming."

"It's okay, Pen." Emma answered, brushing her hair over her shoulder and changing sides.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I kinda hate you." Penny remarked, watching the younger girl.

Emma, at the age of thirteen was already 5'9", with red wavy hair halfway down her back. She had the fair skin that everyone in their family had, save Penny. The same sparkly green eyes adorned her heart-shaped face. She was going to break many hearts, Penny was sure.

"Please," Emma answered, standing and flipping her hair over and bending at the waist. "Like you're not drop dead gorgeous." Penny grinned sardonically at the wall of hair that was currently speaking to her. "Those boys across the hall all clearly worship the ground you walk on."

"Howard is ready to fall in love with the first girl who glances in his direction," Penny replied, finally pulling her other shoe on as she leaned against the closest wall. "Raj has no choice but to look on adoringly since he can't talk to me unless he's drunk. Sheldon is completely indifferent to every human he interacts with and Leonard is so incredibly…." She stopped and sighed sadly. "Fickle and…hypocritical." She looked at her niece for a moment.

"Raj is cute," Emma reasoned, flipping her hair back and standing straight again to flounce toward the kitchen.

Penny chuckled. "You only think that because he hasn't spoken to you."

Emma pulled a bottle of water out of Penny's fridge, furrowing her brow. "So, Sheldon is gay then?"

"I don't know," Penny responded, hearing the defensive nature in her own voice. When she noticed her niece's raised eyebrows, she rolled her eyes. "I mean, he gets weird around …all people. At least all people he doesn't know pretty well."

"So yesterday, the way you two were acting with each other…was that normal?"

Penny thought back to the interaction she'd had the previous day with him, but remembered nothing out of the ordinary. "How were we acting?"

Emma grinned. "Like Nana Violet and Bumpa Jim."

The look Penny gave the younger girl could have frozen water. "Yes, but your Grandma Violet is crazy," she replied in reference to her mother. "You know that."

"So is Doctor Who over there," Emma shot back instantly, motioning toward the door.

"Your creepy fascination with my peculiar neighbor is not that charming, you know."

Before Emma could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Penny quickly moved across her hard wood floor and answered the door to find a tall man with curly blond hair and a permanent grin on his face.

"Hey, Chase." She gave him her most winsome smile and ushered him into the apartment. "This is my niece Emma. She's visiting from Nebraska."

"Oh cool," he enthused vapidly. "So you're like a farmer?"

Emma gave him a withering look before replying with a flat "Yeah".

"Right on," he answered, completely missing her attitude toward him.

"You're sure you're okay here?" Penny asked, grabbing her purse. She really did feel bad about this, but she'd been trying to get Chase to ask her out for three months, since his arrival in her acting class.

"Yeah," Emma said as she stepped into her flip flops. "I think I'm gonna go across the hall and see what's going on over there. They seem to think I'm six, which means they will try to entertain me with dropping eggs from their window and making baking soda volcanoes."

"Oh, those are fun," Chase chimed in brightly. Emma looked at Penny for a moment.

"Really?"

Penny narrowed her eyes for a moment in response before smiling at her tall perfect date. "Okay, we'll be back later. Don't start a fire. Don't shave anything. Don't pierce anything." Chase opened the door and she paused, turning back to her niece. "And if any of them ask you how you feel about online gaming, for God's sake, run."

***

Penny trudged up the four flights of stairs by herself, discarded shoes in one hand, at quarter to ten.

She now knew without a doubt that she had in fact been dating the wrong type of guy. Chase had looked like someone she would want to be seen with. But, trying to actually make conversation with him over dinner had been less fun than a trip to the dentist. Why was it all the good guys were taken or gay?

She stopped her thoughts as the sound of a familiar nineties rock song wafted toward her from 4A. Curious, she opened the door quietly.

There, in front of the television were Emma and Sheldon, engrossed in Rock Band. Sheldon, as always, was on guitar, while Emma tore up the vocals on that one song that Courtney Love's band had.

"When I wake up in my makeup," Emma sang, totally into her performance. She was good. Really good, actually. But Penny felt her eyes being pulled to the tall physicist in the room. She had never seen him so into this game before. He was not even looking at the screen, totally involved in the toy guitar he held as his long fingers expertly glided over the plastic frets.

"It's too early for that dress," Penny joined in. The two performers stopped, turning toward the door. Emma grinned widely while Sheldon just looked vaguely nauseated. "Don't stop," Penny added, stepping farther into the apartment. "You guys are really good." She threw herself down on the couch in Sheldon's spot. "You should totally take it out on the road."

Sheldon glared pointedly at her for a full thirty seconds before turning away and starting to pack up the game. Penny noticed Emma's face fall slightly, but she recovered quickly. "You need more than two people to have a band," he muttered.

"The Captain and Tennille managed," Penny offered brightly.

"Yeah, thanks." Sheldon said in a flat tone. He looked over at Emma. "Sarcasm."

"You don't have to say it every time," she replied smiling sweetly at him.

Sheldon turned back to Penny, a small smile on his face. "She gets me." Penny put her face in her hands in exasperation.

"Swell," she mumbled through her fingers.

"So, how was your date?" Emma asked as she wrapped the cord around her microphone. "Did you just bat your eyes at each other and stare vapidly into space?"

"It's 9:45, what do you think?" Penny answered, throwing her head back into the red leather. "All he wanted to talk about was his modeling aspirations and how he met Teri Hatcher at Pinkberry one time." Her niece made a sound of empathy. "What is it with guys always sucking?"

Both females' eyes swung over to Sheldon, who stood frozen, staring down at his guitar. "I sense you are both looking at me for insight into the members of my sex, which is …foolhardy to say the least." He paused in his clean up work. "And may I add…move." He snapped his head up sharply and glared at Penny, who glowered back petulantly before sliding over one spot, her short dress riding up unceremoniously.

"Where is everyone else?" Penny asked, noticing for the first time the lack of Howard, Leonard, and Raj.

"It's the third Thursday of the month," Sheldon said in reply, as if this was a perfect explanation. Penny just shook her head slowly.

"Anything can happen," Emma supplied helpfully.

"Oh, right." Penny nodded in understanding. "I thought you would have put the kibosh on that two months ago." She finally dropped her shoes onto the floor and pulled her knees up to her chin.

"Believe me, I've tried." Sheldon responded, primly taking a seat next to Penny on the sofa. "I was however informed that I could, how did Koothropali put it, eat them." Emma snorted at this, collapsing into the large chair usually inhabited by Leonard.

They all sat in silence for a moment. "He was so cute," Penny pouted finally, bringing the conversation back to her as any good actress would.

"It's his loss," Emma announced, "he was dumb as a brick and doesn't deserve you." Penny rolled her eyes at the young girl's attempt to sympathize with her. "Seriously, you look so hot tonight, auntie." Then, in what would later be described as a heinous moment of brain inactivity, Emma added, "don't you agree, Sheldon?"

Penny gave a short awkward bark of a laugh, but Sheldon sat perfectly silent, merely raising one eyebrow at the red head. "This feels like some sort of social convention I am not schooled in." Penny smirked at Emma, hoping this would drop whatever weird thing the thirteen year old thought she was accomplishing.

"Thank you for playing our game." Penny rose inelegantly and retrieved her shoes from the floor. "We have some lovely parting gifts for you."

"The idea," Sheldon continued, "that Penny would need reassurance about her physical appearance is preposterous to say the least." Penny stared at him blankly before narrowing her eyes to slits.

"Excuse me?"

"I simply mean to say that you are told, not least of all by the other member of our social circle, on a daily basis how quote unquote hot you are." Penny blinked. "Therefore, it would be absurd for me to do so at this point, especially when you don't need to be told how beautiful you in fact are." She closed her mouth with a snap and blinked at the man again. "I would sooner comment on what is deemed by others to be a good heart, or what I have perceived to be a rather clever sense of humor."

"Wow," Emma breathed, staring between the two wide-eyed.

Black was white, up was down. Something indescribable had just happened. Sheldon had just…..complimented her?

"Thank you," Penny finally said quietly.

Sheldon looked up at her, confusion clear on his face.

"For what?"