Author's Note: Wow guys! Thank you so much. I'm EXTREMELY new to this site (I think I've had an account for about a week now) and the response to this has been overwhelming to me! I'm actually pretty nervous to continue the story now, I feel like I don't want to let you guys down! Thank you so much for the reviews and the story alerts and the favorites. I can't even put into words how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel! Again, this is un-betaed (if anyone would like to beta for me, please let me know and also let me know how it works, because I'm completely clueless) so there might be mistakes. Especially because this chapter is twice as long as the first and was written almost entirely at 2am because I couldn't sleep until I got it out. I really hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I still don't own TBBT, but I do follow Bill Prady on Twitter. Maybe if I ask nicely he'll let me have it as a belated Saturnalia gift?
Penny hated the early Saturday shift. It guaranteed that she wouldn't be able to go out the night before, she would definitely have to be awake before 11, there was a good chance there would a birthday party with a bunch of kids hopped up on sugar while guilty part-time parents looked on, and, oh yeah, the tips sucked. But she worked the early shift to guarantee that she would be off in the evenings. Saturday was Laundry Night, and that was kinda their thing. Had been since she took every washer to screw with his schedule and he'd retaliated by stealing her underwear and sticking them on a power line 25 feet up.
Oh, at first it was more a realization that he stuck to his schedule like his life depended on it. Meaning that if she had a date or wanted to go out with the girls, she'd just need to start her laundry, wait for Sheldon, and ask him if he could "finish it up for her, just this once, oh pleasepleaseplease?" Initially he refused, because honestly, when had Sheldon ever agreed to do anything the first time he'd been asked. Finally she got him to admit that they were friends and then reminded him that friends did favors for each other, it was a non-optional social convention. So when she'd come home way too late from another night out with a jerk or stumbled into her apartment bleary-eyed after last call there would be her laundry basket with her clothes neatly folded on her tidied up coffee table.
That only lasted a few months before she realized that she was being completely unfair and taking advantage of him. Mostly because he showed up at her door one night, an hour before Laundry Night time, asking if she was planning on engaging in her usual Saturday evening social activities and if so he'd prefer to simply pick up her laundry now, to at least be able to ensure that it received a proper wash cycle with similar colored clothes. Oof, had that one stung. After that she would join him for Laundry Night when she could, sometimes she'd have a shift at work, or later she would sometimes have a date with Leonard. But then things crashed and burned there and she was back to sitting on a dryer and irritating him every Saturday at 8:15.
She'd realized about six months ago that she'd fallen into a routine that, while it didn't mimic his, was eerily compatible. She found herself oddly happy when she was scheduled for the early Saturday shift and eventually requested it. It wasn't a hard shift to get because everyone knew that the real tips came from working Saturday nights. But Saturday night was Laundry Night. Which after the catastrophe with Leonard somehow expanded to Laundry and Movie Night. They took turns picking movies and it seemed that initially they were each trying the make the other suffer as much as possible with their selection. Eventually it had settled into a much more relaxed routine. While she still wasn't the sci-fi buff that he was and he still detested romantic comedies, it seemed to work.
So now every Saturday she'd work the early shift, come home, trudge up the stairs, take a shower, then lie on her bed and think about the week before. Well, that last step had always been in her routine. She called home once a week and she had always used the time after her shift to unwind and put all the pieces of her week in order to get ready for the phone call. She loved her family, but that didn't mean that she wanted to stay on the phone with them any longer than she had to and the best defense against that was to carefully weed through everything that had happened since their last phone call.
That was when the trouble all started. About two and half months ago she had been doing just that; mentally going through her week. She thought about the movie they had watched last week (Sheldon's choice, some crazy outer space science-y movie that she could barely keep up with, but still thought was pretty fun and funny), how she had kicked his ass Wednesday during Halo Night, and how he had come next door on Anything Can Happen Thursday for spaghetti with hot dogs. She remembered him telling her some complex science joke and she didn't remember what shocked her more, that it was funny or that she had actually gotten it. She broke into a peal of laughter after his "Bazinga" and she looked up to see him smiling. Not his usual, smug I'm-so-much-smarter-than-you smile or even the weirdly creepy smile she had seen when he had taken her to the ER when she dislocated her shoulder (yeah, she totally got why the other guys called it his "Kill Batman" smile after that), but a real, genuine smile. It even made his blue eyes crinkle up a little bit at the edges. She was thinking of his eyes when her stomach did that little flip that it hadn't done in a loooong time. She sat bolt upright, went completely still, and her eyes widened.
"FRAK!" When she realized what she had just said out loud, her eyes went even wider and she flopped herself over onto her stomach with a dramatic 'fwump' and exhaled. Son of a bitch. Did she have feelings for Sheldon? SHELDON? Sheldon, who ended up nearly banishing her from the apartment when she touched his onion rings, Sheldon? Sheldon, who detested physical contact, Sheldon? Sheldon, who had threatened to jump out the window if she used his toothbrush and then reminded her not to attend his funeral, Sheldon? This was a man that was so OCD and germaphobic that the only person that could even remotely compare was Adrian Monk, and he was a fictional character and whose idiosyncrasies were Sheldon Lite.
When had this happened? If she was honest with herself, there had been a spark that very first day. She spotted him, so tall (God, she always had a thing for tall guys), eyes so blue, clothes so weird. Then she spotted the whiteboard with all the weird symbols and things on it and realized that he was one of those scary brilliant guys. Then Leonard had whined, wanting her to focus on him. He didn't go all alpha male and try to get her attention back, he just went back to what he had been doing, unbothered. Then she realized the giant bag of crazy that accompanied Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, PhD and the spark died down (died out, she thought).
So Penny thought about Sheldon, the lanky whack-a-doodle next door. He was the single most difficult person that she had ever met in her life. He was rigid to his schedule, hated surprises, and was the least flexible person on the planet. He insulted her almost daily, but never in a purposeful or malicious way. When he said she had inferior intellect he hadn't meant it as a dig, he was merely stating a fact. He could say that to just about anyone in the world and be stating a fact. She realized that most of the time when she felt like he had insulted her, he was just stating the way things were. He couldn't help it that he had absolutely zero social grace and probably wouldn't know tact if it smacked him in the face.
Then she thought about his eyes, such an impossible blue and it always made her think of the sky back home. She thought about his Texas drawl, and the way he would add a sarcastic twang to his voice when he was mocking something or someone. She thought about how it only genuinely came out when his guard was down a little bit or he was really feeling – tired, angry, excited, anything really. Thought about the way his voice made her think of home, even though they'd grown up a thousand miles apart.
He argued with her constantly, which was new. Usually she would just need to bat her eyes and lower her voice to that breathy, flirty tone and she could get whatever she wanted. But not with Sheldon. Once she got her curves, she wasn't used to having to do anything except put in the bare minimum. Other women let her slide because they assumed she was a dumb blonde and couldn't do any better. Men let her slide because they hoped she was a slutty blonde and they could get into her pants. Sheldon pushed her, demanded more, insisted on nothing but her best, and that was all that he expected from her. He didn't need her to be the sex kitten or the starlet or play any part, just be Penny. That's what she was to him; Penny. Not the waitress, not the easy party girl at the club, not the hot girl next door. She was just Penny.
Yup, she liked him. Crap. She might be a big ol' five and like a challenge, but this was a man that had no deal. He had never, not once in all the years that she'd known him, expressed romantic interest in a woman. Or a man. Or any living thing, for that matter. In fact, the closest he had gotten to a romantic relationship was whatever the hell he had going on with Amy right now. Even though he insisted that she wasn't his girlfriend every chance he got. He was overly literal, couldn't lie to save his life, and was the single most aggravating person she had ever met. He was also incredibly loyal, caring, sweet and funny (in his own way).
Three weeks ago, after Laundry and Movie Night she cried herself to sleep realizing she was in love with a man that could probably never love her back.