The Ex-Girlfriend Laws

The Ex-Girlfriend Laws

"Your ex-girlfriend?"

Penny brushed some blonde hair out of her face as she unlocked her apartment door, unsure of how to take this news. After all, she and Leonard had been going steady for about a month, and he'd never mentioned this Emile Portmanteau girl before.

"Sheldon is such a moron," Leonard griped as he cradled Penny's groceries in one arm. Hers were much lighter than his. He couldn't figure out why.

Penny opened the door, trying to keep a surge of jealousy down. "Why is she coming?"

"She has a presentation to give, apparently," Leonard said, putting Penny's groceries on her brightly colored couch. "I'm going to kill Sheldon."

"…What's she like?" Penny asked, curiosity getting the better of her. She looked at herself in a nearby mirror. What if Emile was like her – thin and pretty? What if Leonard liked Penny because she reminded him of Emile?

"She's a stark, raving lunatic," Leonard groused. He began to put Penny's energy bars into a cabinet in her kitchen, avoiding the various bartending accoutrements Penny left around after work.

Penny's eyes widened. "You didn't break up on good terms?"

"She tried to poison, burn, and crush me."

"At the same time?"

Leonard shook his head. "But all in the same day."

Penny inhaled sharply before narrowing her eyes. "So Sheldon really is an idiot. I thought he was just insensitive."

"Sheldon forgot that we'd even gone out," Leonard said coldly.

"Score one for idiot." Penny turned on her television, setting it to a music channel before going to water her plants. She put her hand in the pocket of her jean skirt, looking for the key for the cabinet that held the watering can, sighing all the while.

"She's arriving tomorrow?" Penny asked.

"Indeed."

"Maybe I could come with you two when you go to pick her up," Penny offered.

"So she can kill both of us? Yeah, no thanks, Penny," Leonard snapped before realizing what he'd just done. Burying his face in his hands, he muttered, "I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do… I never wanted to see her ever again, and now she's going to be staying in our apartment for two weeks…"

"She could stay in my apart –"

"So she can murder you while you sleep?"

"Honestly, Leonard, I don't think she's Annie Wilkes."

"…Who?"

Penny stared into space, retrieving her watering can. "…Leonard, maybe… maybe she's changed. How long has it been since you've seen her?"

"Six years," Leonard responded automatically.

"So you would've been about eighteen?"

"Yes. And she was about the same…"

"Well then!" Penny clapped her hands together. "She's probably changed quite a bit. You shouldn't worry so much."

Leonard couldn't help but believe Penny. Her voice was so syrupy, so reassuring, that Leonard never distrusted a word she said.

"…Maybe you're right."

-o-

"There's going to be a girl in your apartment?" Howard asked, nearly choking on some juice.

Leonard had the good fortune of walking back into his apartment just as Howard, his favorite perverted engineer, said those words. And he nearly throttled him.

"She's a demon from Hell!" Leonard screamed as he walked into the doorway. Sheldon and Howard jumped a few feet in the air, while Raj, their Indian companion, slopped some cola down his front.

"Hello to you too," Raj muttered, walking to the bathroom.

Sheldon, still playing Halo, paused the game to look at Leonard. "Leonard, she is not from Hell. I was there when she was born."

"You were one!" Leonard protested.

Howard put up his hands to shut the two of them up. Howard, like Leonard and Sheldon, was definitely not a textbook example of good-looking, what with his Beatles-esque haircut, lanky frame, and rather large nose. But Howard was a pervert, so he had that going for him.

"What's so bad about a girl being in your apartment?" Howard asked. "I mean, it's a girl."

Raj rolled his eyes as he re-entered the room. "And why are you talking like this woman eats the heads of men or something?"

"She's my ex-girlfriend," Leonard said, thoroughly tired of explaining this to everyone on earth.

"Can I have her?" Howard inquired.

"Wolowitz…"

Sheldon restarted the game and chose to ignore everyone else in the room.

"Ex-girlfriend?" Raj questioned. "I thought your only ex-girlfriend was the one who defected to the Communists."

"There was another one," Leonard admitted as he sat down next to Howard on the couch. "When I was eighteen, I dated Sheldon's cousin for a few months. She used to live down here. But then things went bad, and we broke up, and she threw things, and tried to poison me, and tried to light me on fire."

Howard bit his lip. "And… how old was she?"

"Seventeen."

"And why is she visiting?"

"She's got proof that Anna Anderson was related to the royal family of Russia," Sheldon answered for Leonard, not tearing his eyes away from the exploding frag grenades onscreen.

Raj took a giant swig of coke. "Really? How?"

"She's a geneticist and a microbiologist," Sheldon responded.

Howard glanced over at Leonard. "Was she a -?"

"She tried to poison me with E. coli."

"Ah." Howard smiled awkwardly, electing to watch Sheldon play video games for a few seconds. "I think I'd like to meet her."

"Oh yes, she sounds like a fantastic person," Raj said sarcastically. He put his coke on the table, twirling it around in circles with his finger. "I mean, who wouldn't want to meet a psychopath who poisons her ex-boyfriends with deadly bacteria?"

"It could've been worse," Howard offered.

"Yeah. Could've been Ebola," Leonard said. "But maybe Penny's right. Maybe she's changed since then."

Howard rested his chin on his hands. "Either way, I'd love to know what you did to get her so pissed off."

A/N: Short little chapter, I know. I've gotten 80 hits, so I'm hoping that 80 people are looking forward to reading this. Either that, or 4 people read the first chapter 20 times apiece. Either way, thank you for reading.

A/N 2: For those of you who don't know: Annie Wilkes is the psychopathic fan from Steven King's Misery, while Ebola is a virus that kills 90 of the people who contract it.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Big Bang Theory. Wish I did, but that would make me Chuck Lorre, and I'm pretty sure Chuck Lorre doesn't write fanfiction.