Ch 3

Lights, camera, action. They were dressed all in black, and Penny had printed out an artist's interpretation of the monopole, put it in a picture frame, and put a black ribbon around the picture's frame, the object clearly in the camera's view.

Penny said, "So it was a short in the electrical system, going off and on, that created the false positives?"

Sheldon nodded, face tight. "Unfortunately, due to the noise, we don't even have a negative result. The Expedition was simply a waste of time and resources."

Penny said, "Wasn't Dr. Leonard Hofstadter supposed to stop things like that from happening?"

Sheldon said, "Leonard is the one who identified the source of the error. And almost from the beginning, he was notably less excited by the results than I was. I allowed my excitement to run away with me. As a seasoned experimental physicist, he knew how much trust to place on those results."

"I see," said Penny. She was still furious. She wanted to drag Leonard like he was a high school girl who'd messed with her boyfriend. But Sheldon was still protecting his friend, and doing it by telling nothing but the truth.

"Of course, in Leonard's lab, such a problem would never have occurred, or would've been more promptly identified, but the conditions we were operating under were far from ideal."

Penny nodded gravely, hoping that this postmortem would save at least some of Sheldon's pride.

That was what she titled the video — The Arctic Expedition: A Postmortem.

#
#

Leonard, after the one night and most of a day away, returned to his apartment, a dark bruise on his cheek. Penny was in Sheldon's spot on the couch, her laptop set up on the coffee table.

They looked away from each other at first, but information needed to be exchanged.

Leonard said, "Where's Sheldon?"

"In his room."

"And you're-"
"I'm here for him." The new video was already posted, and Penny was applying for roles as she waited.

Leonard nodded and wandered through the apartment, pacing.

When he wasn't looking, Penny went to the trash, dug out the plastic slab with the snowflake inside, snuck with it into the bathroom, washed it off in the sink, and returned it to him.

"Here," she said, feeling snarky and cold. "Have this to remember the Expedition by."

He pocketed it with a mumbled thanks, and Penny felt bad for saying it how she had. She realized there still was a strong friendship between them, or would be in a few days, when the floodwaters of her anger had receded.

Soon, but not yet, she'd ask him to explain, though it was easy enough to guess. Penny was amused by a lot of Sheldon's Sheldonness, and she could knock him down easily enough, but even for her, Sheldon was one of the most aggravating people she'd ever met.

For the boys, it was a lot worse, and had surely been much worse than usual, alone, in the Arctic, stuck with each other, far away from Sheldon's pacifying routines.

That didn't excuse what they did, but they hadn't realized what they were doing. Hadn't thought through the implications, considered what it would mean beyond the confines of that small, claustrophobic shelter in the Arctic white.

Maybe she'd over-reacted. Leonard had deserved the yelling, but not the throwing. Not the violence, and not her attempt to drag him on Youtube.

She said, "There's something you should see."

She led Leonard to the couch and pulled the video up on her laptop.

Penny watched Leonard, not the video. Saw the fear when the Nebraska Barbie brought him up. The relief when the Wackadoodle defended him, omitted what Leonard had done, and made him sound like the competent, sober scientist in the scenario. And she saw the growing guilt in his eyes.

Leonard said, "Is he ready to talk?"

"How should I know?"

"You're the Sheldon whisperer."

Penny pointed to Sheldon's bedroom door. "Knock and ask him."

Leonard knocked, and spoke softly, and Sheldon replied. He opened the door part way, and they talked in the threshold. She couldn't hear them clearly, but from the sounds of it, while Leonard was bringing up the expected excuses about how nuts Sheldon had driven them, that wasn't all he was saying.

Penny put on earphones to give them the illusion of privacy, though she didn't actually play any music through the earphones.

Penny looked beneath the video, at the comments, and her breath caught.

As Leonard and Sheldon talked, she busied herself, clicking and removing and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

She sloughed off the headphones when Sheldon, taking confidence in Raj's apology and Penny taking his side, said, "Leonard, you're taking responsibility."

"What?" said Leonard.

Penny turned to face them.

Sheldon said, "I won't ask you to fall on your sword. I'm aware that you'd lose your job and have great difficulty in finding another if what actually happened were documented. But you still must take responsibility."

Jaw tight, Leonard said, "You want me to claim honest error?"

"That would be a way of claiming responsibility. It wasn't my fault, and I won't let anyone think it was."

"Sheldon, I could lose my grants. My funding. I need grants and funding to buy equipment and run experiments. All you need is your mind and a whiteboard. Think about the good of physics."

"I hardly think your derivative experiments make any difference to the good of physics."

Penny piped up. "I don't know anything about grants or funding. But you can't let Sheldon take the fall for what you did to him. If you do, your apology doesn't mean anything."

"Fine," said Leonard. "I'll write a letter to Dr. Gablehauser. I'll make it all my mistake. Happy?"

"It's an important first step."

"Well what else do you want?"

"I'm considering it. There are so many things I might ask for."

Leonard said, "Sheldon, this is an apology, not a chance to for you extract concessions in the roommate agreement."

Penny sloughed off her headphones and caught his arm. "Saying sorry isn't enough. You need to make it up to him."

"I'm writing that letter."

"That just means you're not going to screw him over all the way. That doesn't make up for screwing him over part of the way."

"Fine. Alright. I'll be in my room. Thinking about it."

He slammed his bedroom door behind him, and Penny wondered how sorry he really was, or if he was just afraid of Sheldon telling their boss the whole story.

Before Sheldon could close his own door, Penny said, "You can't hole up in there forever, Sweetie. I've got something to show you."

He came cautiously out, and sat at his spot.

"You should look at those," said Penny, in regards to the video comments.

Youtube comments were not, in general, a place to find wisdom. Their Channel was better than most, but not great.

But while there'd been plenty of trollish comments to delete, and harsh, tone death criticisms and pretentious advice columns that she couldn't justify deleting, those comments were far, far outnumbered by empathetic ones. By people telling their own stories of disasters at their jobs. People from all walks of life. Teachers, Doctors, business people, soldiers, students. Scientists and engineers.

Sheldon read, and comment by comment, the tension in his shoulders faded.

#
#

With Sheldon feeling better, Penny brought out a green hoodie and showed it to him.

It had NBWD in a plain, Arial font that had been aggressively frilled. Nebraska Barbie (and the) WackaDoodle. The front zipped, and had two silhouettes. One of her and one of him, both stylized. When you zipped it up, they got close together, and if you looked carefully, you saw that the white space suggested a heart. Penny hadn't liked that idea, but it was what the designer for the silkscreener had come up with.

Presenting it to Sheldon, Penny said, "It's a hoodie. From the Channel. We're contracting with a silkscreener, and we get eight bucks for every hoodie sold."

"Excellent," said Sheldon. "You've washed this?"

"I have."

He put it on. "It's so soft." He shimmied. "Have we sold many?"

"Just a few, but once we get the Channel back going, hopefully it'll really take off. "

"Excellent," he said again. "I am available to shoot a video tonight. I am not due back at the college for a week, and I have been thinking of taking a sabbatical."

Penny said, "Thanks, but I have to study for my final."

"Your final?" said Sheldon. "You're taking a class?"

"Three. At the local JC. It's not much, but I thought it would help, and-"

"It's wonderful," said Sheldon. "I'm thrilled you're pursuing your education. It's been vicariously painful, being so often around someone so uneducated."

Ah. Sheldon. Pissing her off even in the midst of sincere pleasure.

He said, "What classes are you taking?"

"Personal Finances, Marketing, and Cinematography."

"Oh," said Sheldon. "Better than nothing, I suppose."

"I'm learning a lot."

"I'm sure you are. But there can't be much to learn. Personal Finances, for instance, can hardly be more than basic math. Do they have anything more complicated than compound interest with the natural log? I doubt it. That's not real math. Just punching symbols into a calculator."

The math in Personal Finances was kicking her ass, especially calculating interest rates, but she ignored that.

Penny said, "I also got a part in a SyFy original movie. Shooting's all done. It's called Door from the Past. The idea is that going back in time is impossible, but everyone goes forward in time, all the time. And it's possible to go forward faster. There's this secret government particle collider under a small town in Idaho, and all these temporal gates form, and all these people and missing armies from throughout history come through them. And animals too. But not a lot, because we don't have the budget for good CGI mammoths. In the end they all have to band together to close the temporal gates before they move far enough back in time to let the Yellowstone Supervolcano explosion come through."

Sheldon said, "That's surprisingly not completely implausible, by SyFy original movie standards."

"I'm the Amazon Queen. It's a pretty big role. Or it could be, depending on how the editing goes. It'll premier on TV for too long." SyFy's post-production process was less than exhaustive.

"However, I assure you that the US government is highly unlikely to have any colliders capable of anything the Large Hadron Collider isn't capable of. And the term temporal rift is quite overused — it's often unclear what it means. And extinct diseases our modern immune systems might be unprepared for would be a bigger global threat than backwash from an ancient volcanic eruption.

Penny said, "Aren't you going to congratulate me on the biggest role of my life?"

His mouth opened and closed as he realized he should've. "Congratulations, Penny. I'm not sure- We can do whatever you want. We can even eat whatever you want. And I'll buy. Even though you should pay, since you got a more substantial that normal part. Though it is only a SyFy Original Movie."

Penny wished she had another plastic slab to throw. "I understand why Leonard and Howard snapped."

Sheldon paled, and Penny immediately regretted it. But not completely.

"You think I deserved it."

"No. But you're more than tactless and unaware. You're thoughtless and mean. And condescending and cocky. And that's why they did what they did. It doesn't make it okay, but it is the reason."

Sheldon said, "I tell the truth.

Penny said, "Lots of things are true. You don't say all of them. You choose which ones to say."

"I say the truths that are relevant."

He was such a kid. "Is the point of talking to blurt out whatever you think is true and 'relevant,' or is to communicate? Because sweetie, no one listens when they feel insulted. No matter how true it is."

"They should."

"They don't. You're the one who told me that scientists need to face up to the evidence, whether they like it or not."

He was silent, and Penny knew that had got to him. The accusation that his personal habits didn't follow his ideals. "Sheldon, I love that you're honest and straightforward and never pretend, but it would be good if you had a better idea of what made people feel bad, so you could choose not to make them feel bad if you didn't want to. Like I don't think you wanted to make me feel bad just now, wanted to make me feel so small, like what I did isn't worth anything. But you sure as hell did. And if you could just be polite with strangers, that would help. That's all."

Penny didn't suppose there was anything to say about him being a twitchy, neurotic mess when his routines were broken, or his warped view of reality.
Sheldon nodded, lips pressed together in a hard line, and Penny felt guilty for laying all that on him when he was still hurting.

It was a long time until she realized what an impact it made.

#

#

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

Knock knock knock. "Penny."

She opened the door, saw how nervously he was shifting from foot to foot, how he was refusing to meet her gaze, and ushered him in.

Taking his seat, Sheldon said, "First, it seems that I may have been insufficiently enthusiastic and supportive on hearing of your recent accomplishments. Congratulations."

"Is this an apology?"

He grimaced, and seemed to need a physical effort to say, "My apologies."

Penny waited for the next part, the part where he'd make it her fault, saying he was sorry she needed more support, or sorry she'd been offended. But it didn't come. Just a single, stiff, 'my apologies.'

His eyes unusually intense, Sheldon said, "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"The friendly banter between Koothrapali, Wolowitz and Leonard has always consisted largely of 'burns.' Often, 'sick burns.' These 'burns' are often directed at me as well. I have endeavored to learn to deliver 'burns' of my own. I have looked upon my success in this endeavor as a major social advancement. Is that not the case?"

Penny's heart flopped. Not so much because he was lost and worried, but because he was being vulnerable with her.

Sheldon seemed freakishly arrogant, and though Leonard had never cottoned onto it, Penny had realized early on that part of that was his way of making a joke. But most of it was completely genuine.

But she wasn't at all surprised to see, had long assumed, that hidden by that genuine arrogance, was deep, deep insecurity, and he was showing it to her. Baring it to her.

Penny said, "That's probably true. But 'burns' aren't always appropriate. I think guys do it more than girls. And even then, it's usually only with people you're already friends with. And even with people you're friends with, there are limits. It can get mean, and it shouldn't."

"Oh," said Sheldon.

He looked as she had when, flush on the triumph of solving for the formula of a line, Sheldon had shown her calculus. On the threshold of despair, faced with something that seemed as if it would always be beyond her.

Sheldon continued, "I have difficulty distinguishing between the witty banter of my social group, and what I believe to be the genuine dislike of, say, Leslie Winkle. With Leonard, Koothrapali, and Wolowitz, how am I to determine what is appropriate burns and ribbing, and what is, as you said, 'mean?'"

Rather than flopping, Penny's heart seized up. She'd told herself she'd called a friend out on bad behavior, but now she felt as if she'd found a puppy that had been taught to chew the furniture, and had kicked it for doing so. Or more accurately, she'd found a man as a dumb in one way as he was brilliant in another, and punched him hard in the feels. Gone right after his insecurities, told him the best coping mechanism he'd ever learned was just him being mean.

The insults he'd given her over the years? How many had been his attempt at being friendly? Not all of them, but not none of them either. Penny said, "That 'constant burns' sort of friendship isn't something girls usually do as much. I'm not an expert on it."

"You engage in it."

"I fight off Howard, and I go toe-to-toe with you. I joke with Leonard. I don't know a ton about guy friendships. So I don't know how much I can help you. But maybe you could be less aggressive, and time it better. If someone's having a bad day, they're in a bad mood, they're opening, open, you shouldn't do it then. Try to figure out when people want support, not burns. That shouldn't be that hard to figure out. I'll help you. We'll put together some rules of thumb. And maybe it wouldn't be bad to diversify a little. To not be always going after them for intelligence."

Sheldon said, "What would I hold over them, if not my superior intelligence?"

"Raj can't talk to women, still can't even talk to me, and Howard creeps out anything female between the age of 15 and 50. And he lives with his mother."

Sheldon said, "The others burn Howard over living with his mother, but I do not wish to. Based on two comments he has made, I believe that though she locomotes around the house alright, she is not entirely well and needs assistance. That he lives with her, a state he professes to dislike, despite being able to afford otherwise, is nearly the only thing I respect about Wolowitz."

"Oh..." said Penny.

"You mentioned heuristics? Rules of thumb?"

"Well, if you're talking to someone, and their face moves like this," she grimaced, "you probably shouldn't've said what you just said."

"Make that expression again," said Sheldon.

Penny made it again.

"I see."

"And this is more subtle," said Penny, doing it mostly just with her eyes, and a slight tightening of her lips.

"What's more subtle?"

"This is," she said, doing it again.

"What's 'this?'"

"This."

Sheldon said, "You're not doing anything. You're simply staring at me blankly."

She whipped out her compact to check to be sure she was doing it right, and she clearly was. "See, like this. You see how my lips tighten and my jaw drops a tiny bit?"

"Do it again."

She did it again.
"I do see. That's positively minute. You're claiming that people notice movements that small, and correctly interpret them? I find that hard to credit."

"Most people don't think about them, but they do see them. But this might be more obvious." She moved her arm in particular fashion. "This means I'm angry, but holding it in."

"Moving your arm?"

"No. See the rotation on my elbow, and how I bring my shoulder in? Yeah. See? Howard does this all the time when you insult him."

"He flaps his arm like a gangly bird?"

"No. Look." She moved her arm. "See that?" She moved it again. "And see how the second time it was angry."
Sheldon blinked. "How do you know all this?"

"Acting lessons. Micro expressions and body language."

"Well, there's more to be learned than I anticipated." He headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To fetch a notebook and pen. So I can take notes."

It was the weirdest acting exercise Penny had ever done. Demonstrating multiple ways to signal different emotions, some subtle, some less, and discussing 'appropriate responses,' with Sheldon.

She doubted anyone had ever done anything like it with him before, and the quick sketches he drew, while not detailed, were eerily exact.

#
#

For a few strange days, Penny didn't see much of Leonard, Howard or Raj, and when she did see Leonard, they hardly talked.

She saw Sheldon plenty, and that was great — she'd missed the big dork — but something more precious than she'd realized was in danger of being lost with the other three.

She was relieved when a summit was arranged. Penny, Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj. The usual group. The first time they'd all seen each other since Penny had blown her gasket. They sat awkwardly in their usual spots, sipping cool beverages, the mood tense.

"I'm sorry," said Howard, "For messing up the experiment. I regret that. What I should've done was fixed the can opener and started sending you false results just on the computer, while keeping the real results. Then we still would've had the experiment conducted alright."

"I see," said Sheldon, stiff. "That would've been better. We would've completed the experiment. And you would still have gotten your chance to laugh at me." He twitched.

"It wasn't about laughing at you," said Howard. "It was damned funny, but that wasn't what it was about. I was defending myself. It'd been weeks, and we hadn't seen any sign of the monopole. We were all getting convinced that it either doesn't exist or our equipment wasn't sensitive enough. And you were going nuts, more than normal, ordering us all around, and who was taking the worst of it? Me. Because I'm an engineer and I don't have a doctorate, it was obviously my fault. My stupidity spreading out like a cloud to scare the monopoles away. Sheldon, when you're not being a bully, you're a lot of fun and I almost like you, but you're a bully way too often, and I'm your favorite target, and you had nothing to do up there but pick on me, so I did what I needed to do to make you lay off. So no. I'm not sorry."

Sheldon would've gotten up and marched to his room if Penny hadn't given him a pleading look.

He swallowed, and, as if it pained him greatly, Sheldon said, "I'm sorry if you felt offended."

"But not sorry for being an absolute pain in the ass every minute of every day."

"I can hardly be held responsible for you interpret my words. However," he grimaced. "I apologize for my lack of sensitivity in my interactions with you, provided that you apologize for any intention to falsely make me believe that I'd proven String Theory."

Howard said, "Lack of sensitivity? You mean saying I'm stupid all the time."

"Wolowitz, I don't think you're stupid. You're only less intelligent than I am, which is nothing to feel bad about, nearly everyone is. Honestly. To call someone stupid, they'd have to have an IQ at least a standard deviation below the mean. Yours, I assume, is above that."

"You assume?"
"Wolowitz, I don't wish to judge. I'm sure that many people of well-below the mean intelligence work hard, study hard, and become successful engineers."

"And there you are on engineers again, going on about how inferior they are. As if you'd last a day without us."

Attempting diplomacy, Sheldon said, "Wolowitz, I won't deny that engineers are utterly necessary. Without them, the whole system of science would fail. In that sole respect, they might be accounted as equal to theoreticians. But they are not the only necessary part, and every part's value is measured by its replaceability. If needed, the government could round up art majors, send them to camps, and train the better half of them up into serviceable engineers within a few years. The same cannot be said of theoreticians."

Howard said, "If every theoretician in the world gave up science to take up minecraft, the world would keep on chugging. Experimentalists and engineers would keep turning out advancements, if at a slower rate. But if every engineer took up minecraft, you'd get that zombie apocalypse before the art majors could be trained."

The two glared, and before Sheldon could raise his volume in his rebuttal, Penny said, "What about English majors?"

Howard sighed. He and Sheldon exchanged looks. It was Howard who spoke. "Penny, it's true that a strong minority of Art Majors would make respectable engineers. We respect Art Majors. A lot of them have high degrees of technical knowledge and hands-on skill and were in band with us. But English majors? Business majors? Sociologists?" He snickered.

Penny said, "And actors?"
Howard snicker graduated to a snigger, and Sheldon laughed his weird, breathy laugh.

"What about Christopher Lee?" said Leonard.

"That's different," said Sheldon. "Sir Christopher Lee could accomplish whatever he set his mind to. As could Leonard Nimoy. In any population, you will find exceptional individuals, but overall, it's like prospecting for gold in a limestone deposit."

Howard nodded, and Penny mimed wanting to choke him, only Leonard looking as if he understood the motion. She said, "You lost half your right to complain, right there."

"What?" said Howard.

She threw her hands up.

Raj whispered in Howard's ear. Howard said, "Oh."

Sheldon said, "I see where this is going. Very well. I will make an attempt to cease pointing out your intellectual deficiencies, and even to cease assuming, without strong evidence, that you have them."

Howard's jaw was tight, but figuring that was the best he'd get, he said, "Fine. Sorry for the Arctic and all. I shouldn't have done that. At all."

Sheldon said, "Yes, you shouldn't have. And you should've told me about it before I sent an email detailing our preliminary findings." He turned to Leonard. "You've already apologized extensively. However, I understand that it was your idea originally. I believe you have a letter to show me."

Leonard pulled a manila envelope from his jacket pocket, opened it, and gave the letter to Sheldon.

Sheldon quickly read the letter. "I see you were scrupulous in painting a highly deceptive image of what happened without actually contradicting the truth."

Leonard shrugged.

Sheldon read an excerpt aloud. "Dr. Cooper was heavily preoccupied with analysis of the data. Communication was poor on our part, and I failed to communicate my reservations regarding the data's accuracy, even projecting a false confidence that I believed would be beneficial to our mental states in the difficult Arctic conditions."

"Mmhmm."

"It's acceptable. And co-signed by Wolowitz, I see. You may send a copy to Dr. Gablehauser, and post another to the interdepartmental website."

"Right," aid Leonard, looking resigned.

Sheldon turned to Raj.

Raj pointed to himself, full of questions, clearly asking what he had done.

Sheldon said, "You apologized first, and under the least duress, and are, from what I understand, least culpable, but I still expect some form of redress. You, like the others, owe me 10 hours of your telescope or supercomputer time, at my request, for whatever I like."

Howard said, "But that's-"

"A great idea," said Penny brightly. "Probably a lot less than you should all have to do."

The guys agreed with half-hearted grumbles, and Penny thought they were secretly relieved that it was ending so painlessly.

Sheldon said, "Leonard, you are no longer my best friend. Penny has moved ahead of you. You're number 2. Koothrapali, you've been upgraded from treasured acquaintance to friend. I will henceforth refer to you as 'Raj.' Wolowitz, you've been downgraded to 'treasured acquaintance.' I will, however, make an attempt to not upend your view of polite behavior. Penny, congratulations. This is an updated version of the friendship contract, modified to reflect our strengthened relationship. I expect you to sign it by the end of the night. Any questions? No. Good. It's vintage game night, and I'm in the mood for original Mario Kart."

#
#

Even after the summit, there was a residual awkwardness, a feeling on Penny and Sheldon's part that apologies so forced couldn't be good apologies at all.

So it was a relief when Leonard told her about the party, being thrown with the oh-so convincing excuse of it being the half-anniversary of Sheldon receiving his first doctorate. The guys were putting together a roster of everything Sheldon loved, and inviting everyone Sheldon knew and got along with alright, which wasn't a lot of people past the three boys, Penny and Stuart so they were flying in Missy, Sheldon's twin sister as well.

"Well that'll be nice. I'm glad you guys are making it up to him."

Leonard grinned. "It's his half-doctoral anniversary. What else are we going to do?"

#
#

Sheldon, of course didn't leave it to them. With half an hour still from when Raj and Howard were supposed to show up to help, Leonard and Penny got working, and Sheldon supervised them setting up the laser maze.

They were quiet, and Penny wished she could just talk to Leonard like she used to, that the ice wasn't so thick, and so quick to reform once broken.

"So," said Leonard, awkwardly. "Sheldon tells me you've gone back to school."

"Just part-time. Three classes."

"How'd you do?"

"One C and two B's," Penny said quickly. She'd just gotten her grades back, and she was pleased. Proud. She'd passed every class, and that was nine credits right there. But the guys… She'd never admit to any of them how much time she'd had to spend with tutors in the writing center after she'd gotten her grade for her first essay. How much time she'd spent doing homework or studying on set during the shooting of Door from the Past.

"Good," said Leonard. "I'm proud of you. You're taking a lot of positive steps with your life lately."

"Yes," said Sheldon, "Good. Well done." A muscle in his jaw jerked.

Penny said, "You can say it, Sheldon. I wish I'd gotten better grades too."

"No. I've chosen not to say it, because I am a mature and sophisticated individual with a well-developed sense of discretion and restraint. Though I am sure-" He paused. Frowned. "You know, this is more strenuous than I expected."

Visibly thinking, Sheldon went to the whiteboard and started writing.

Penny moved to see around him.

You didn't fail any classes. That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, of course. I've never gotten a C in my life, and only a few B's, due to envious teachers who didn't appreciate my correcting their tests or devising projects more interesting than those they had planned. But-"

Sheldon stopped and erased, then added a little more, leaving himself with. That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes. If you work harder, or take on additional activities known to modestly boost intelligence, you'll likely do better.

He erased and replaced the last sentence, leaving himself with That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes. As you learn more, and re-accustom yourself to being a student, developing your study skills, you should do even better.

Nodding to himself, he turned to Penny and said, "That's good. It's too bad you didn't get A's, but B's and C's are perfectly serviceable. 'C's get degrees,' as I'm told the saying goes, and you got two B's besides. As you learn more, and re-accustom yourself to being a student, developing your study skills, you should do even better."

With the strange mixture of exasperation, disbelief and fondness that only Sheldon could evoke, Penny gave him two thumbs up. She exchanged a familiar look with Leonard, but her grin was by far the brighter. She hadn't thought he'd try so hard, not nearly.

Sheldon smirked, pleased that he'd pulled it off.

#

It went well, and Penny had Missy to talk to. Raj still couldn't speak to her, and Howard offered to show her all the most exciting places in Pasadena, starting with his bedroom, but Missy Cooper had been creeped on by scarier men than Howard Wolowitz, and she handled him with aplomb.

And Sheldon, reading from cue cards, extended his own olive branches.

"Raj, as a reward for your comparative loyalty, I'll allow you to work for me. I'm embarking on a study of dark matter, and I could make use of an astrophysicist." He smiled unconvincingly as he delivered the compliment, "A fine astrophysicist such as yourself."

Raj blinked and couldn't respond with Penny and Missy both in view, and Sheldon moved onto Howard.

He said, "Ah, Mr. Wolowitz. You should go for your Doctorate. I'm sure you could do it. You work at a University, so it's not as if there'd be a commute. And whenever there's something you don't understand, I'll be happy to explain it to you."

"Bite me," said Howard.

Sheldon said, "Penny. Penny did you hear that? I didn't suggest he was stupid this time. I was careful. I did everything right, and he's still in a huff."

"You were fine until the last sentence."

"What was wrong with the last sentence?"

"You made it sound like anything he doesn't understand, you obviously do."

"But that's true. I'm smarter than he is, and I have doctorate. Howard knows that. Penny, you're not making any sense."

"You could've said, 'I'd be happy to help any way I can.'"

"In this context, that's the same thing."

"No, it isn't. Just, take that for data. It's not the same."

"Oh, alright. I'll accept that statement provisionally, but don't think I'll just keep on doing that. As a data gathering instrument, I haven't seen good evidence that you work."

He caught up to Howard, who'd moved a few steps away. "Mr. Wolowitz, let me try that again. I believe you should attempt to attain your doctorate. It would make it much easier for me to treat you politely. I'm sure you could do it — just look at Dr. Gablehauser. If he can get a doctorate, you can too, and you work at a University, so it's not as if there'd be a commute. And I'd be happy to help in any way I could."

Penny gave Howard a meaningful look, and Howard said, "You know, it's actually not bad to hear you say that."

Sheldon said, "And it would be even nicer to hear me call you Dr. Wolowitz, I'm sure."

"It would," Howard agreed. "But what would be nicest would be to hear you say that my not having a Doctorate doesn't make my contributions any less, and having a doctorate wouldn't make those same contributions any better."

"Of course not," said Sheldon. "But if you had a Doctorate, you'd make better contributions. Different ones."

"Prove that to me mechanistically," Howard challenged.

"It stands to reason."
"Mm-hmm," said Howard, skeptical.

"You would have more education. You'd know more, and obviously if you knew more, you'd be able to achieve more in the field of scientific endeavor."

"And you know that a classroom isn't the only place a person can learn."

Penny was ready to drag Sheldon away before it could get bad, but it was actually an oddly civil debate.

Maybe she was mothering him too much. She'd been forgetting that he'd had friends and a successful career long before meeting her.

"I certainly learn outside the classroom," Sheldon said. "But lesser minds are often incapable of that."

"Sheldon!"

#
#

Leonard ought to know it was over with Penny.

In another universe, where Penny hadn't started doing those videos with Sheldon, and wouldn't have had the first idea about how science worked as an institution, or known anything about the experiment, Leonard might've been able to pass it off as a harmless prank that got taken a little too far, and then went wrong. Might've given her the impression that they'd gotten a bit carried away, but it wasn't that bad, really, and Sheldon was being a drama Queen.

But in the universe Leonard lived in, that was impossible. Penny didn't really get what a monopole was, but she understood very well that Leonard had screwed one of her best friends over. Monumentally. That said friend was supposedly Leonard's own best friend only made it worse.

That he had, in the process, screwed himself over by ensuring the failure of an experiment that might've transformed his career made it worse still.

But, in the heart of Leonard Hofstadter, hope sprang eternal.

Though there was another, more surprising emotion alongside it.

Leonard was jealous. Of Sheldon, sure. But more oddly, of Penny.

When he'd first become friends with Sheldon, it'd been a matter of convenience. They'd been roommates, and when his job at Cal Tech had started, he'd discovered Sheldon was higher on the totem pole than he was. Then he'd gotten used to him, and they'd had a lot of similar interests, and Sheldon was fun when he wasn't being too much of a nut, and a weird fondness had grown, like mold. And it wasn't like Leonard had had a lot of friends before.

But somewhere in it, without realizing it, he'd really become close with Sheldon. And he hated that Penny had supplanted him as Sheldon's best friend.

So why had he done that? Why had he screwed Sheldon over?

He didn't want to know the answer.

:::

In the first two chapters, Penny learned from Sheldon. Here, we see him learning from her.

Are the guys getting off too easily? Maybe. But Sheldon is also getting off easily. All he had to do was commit to not insulting people as much and maybe change his worldview a bit.

In the final few seasons, none of the characters seem to really be happy in their marriages. It's a show about dysfunctional people in toxic relationships they don't leave because there are good moments, and because they're terrified of being alone, and, in some cases, because they view marriage as being, fundamentally, a permanent guarantee of access to sex. The 'big bang theory,' as it were.

That is not the marriages' fault. A marriage can make a happy person miserable or happier, depending on its quality, but I doubt very much that it can make a miserable person happy. All the characters will have to grow.

I think it's non-ideal for your husband/wife to not be the person you're emotionally closest to, but it sure as heck isn't healthy for your husband/wife to be the only person you have any emotional vulnerability with, to be the one person you lay everything on. That would imply that Sheldon, Leonard, Raj and Howard need to learn how to be vulnerable and open with each other, which, well...

This is going to take some doing.