The fourth time, it's about healing.

It happens on Hamburger Tuesday, when she isn't there to serve him his burger.

All four men sit at their usual table, heatedly discussing the benefits of cloning after watching Doctor Who's The Poison Sky the night before.

"....yes but with a clone of myself, I need never have to suffer through conversation with my parents again! They could force him to marry a woman he has never met and I can run away to the Caribbean and have a beautiful native girl to feed me Grasshoppers every five minutes."

"Oh please, the Sontarans' method of cloning is hardly the most practical, Raj," argues Sheldon. "Were you not paying attention at all? For your clone to be of any use, you would have to be strapped into a machine that extrapolates your memories and transfers them into its mind. What good is a sun-washed beach and alcohol when you're essentially in an induced coma the entire time?"

Raj ducks his face sheepishly into his menu.

"Forget strapping yourself in," Howard picks up the argument, "If I had a feisty red head and a hot military ex-companion at hand I know what I'd be cloning." He has a dreamy look on his face as he sets his menu down. "Imagine it: if I used enough cloning machines, I could have a room full of Howard-loving ladies."

"I think we all know the flaw in that plan," Leonard remarks.

"Just because you clone them it does not mean they'll find you appealing, Wolowitz," Sheldon says.

This time Leonard rolls his eyes. "I would have thought it was obvious enough, Sheldon, but thanks for pointing it out."

Raj smirks; Howard just stares wistfully at the table. Sheldon is about to retort when a waiter appears at their table, a dutiful smile on his face because he knows these nerds are nothing but a nuisance.

The confusion is evident on Sheldon's face. "You're not Penny," he announces.

"Well, the last time I checked I was a dude," the waiter replies. "What can I get for you?"

"I'll have –"

"Well first and foremost you can obtain Penny for us, as she is the only person in this hygiene-suspicious junk food joint that I trust to get my order right."

The waiter blinks. "Are you calling this place dirty?"

Leonard shakes his head at his friend. "She's probably busy with another table, Sheldon. Just give him your order."

"Penny's not here," the waiter reveals, "She left like an hour ago, said she was feeling sick."

"Penny is ill?"

Howard, Raj and Leonard mentally brace themselves for the oncoming germaphobe's rant. She's sick? And she brought her germs to a place where people eat?

Oddly, it seems Sheldon has decided to focus on a different aspect of this revelation.

"But then…who will take my order correctly and make sure it comes placed atop a napkin acting as a bacterial safeguard against the re-used plate?"

Once again, their server for the evening just blinks. "What's wrong the plates?"

"No!" Howard shouts.

Raj hits himself in the forehead with a menu.

"Here we go," groans Leonard.

Sheldon's mouth falls open. "What's wrong with the plates? Well, for starters…"

***

By the time the two roommates arrive home, it's raining.

The lot where residents keep their cars is undercover, but the walk from there to the front doors of the apartment building is not.

"It's only a little rain, Sheldon," Leonard tries to coax his friend from the car. "Come on. We're going to miss the beginning of Stargate Atlantis."

"We have the DVDs."

"Okay let me put it this way: you're going to miss the beginning because I'm going inside and starting without you." He tosses him the keys. "Lock the door when you've decided to brave nature."

"You may be waiting some time," Sheldon replies. Over the pitter-patter of rain on the garage roof, he hears Leonard's footsteps resounding on the concrete, and then relative silence.

The car is stuffy; he opens the passenger door and sits half leaning out, jingling the keys in his hand. "What's wrong with being aware of the causes of pneumonia?" he asks under his breath.

Pneumonia. Sick.

Penny.

Suddenly he realises the implications of Penny's absence at the Cheesecake Factory. She's going to be coughing and spluttering, spreading her germs all over the place. Instead of planning for the bacteria war that is to come, he finds himself wondering what kind of soup she's likely to find beneficial. On the heel of this thought is another: someone is crying. At first he thinks he's imagining it, but no. Over the sound of the rain, there is a definite sniffing, hiccupping sound coming from within the confines of the garage.

Cautiously, Sheldon extricates himself from the car and cranes his neck into the shadows. Immediately he berates himself: lifting his head an extra centimetre is not going to help him see in the dark.

"Hello?" he calls quietly. "Is there anyone there?"

More sniffing, and then a nervous: "Sheldon?"

The voice is a little higher than usual, altered by stress, but there's no mistaking who the person is. "Penny," Sheldon calls, "Where are you?"

"Over here."

He follows the echo of her voice to a corner of the car lot. "Penny," he breathes out again, as the object of his earlier ponderings suddenly materialises before him. She is huddled between her car and the far wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. She's shivering and pale, with tears streaked down her cheeks. He tries to think of something comforting to say.

"It's Hamburger Tuesday. You weren't there."

She chokes out a laugh. It's hollow and completely…not Penny.

"I'm not really sick," she explains. He's towering over her in the corner and if it had been anyone else, she'd be feeling the urge to curl into a tight ball for safety. "I just wanted to leave early because this guy at the restaurant wouldn't stop staring at me. After I'd served him he just sat there watching me throughout my shift." She gulped and rubbed a cold hand over her face. "He was making me feel so uncomfortable."

"So you left work early because a man was looking at you?"

"You weren't there," Penny snaps. "He had this creepy look on his face…it was like, like he knew something I didn't. And even after he finished his meal he just sat there, like he could wait all night."

He notices her shivering to the point of convulsion and decides that sitting beside her may have a comforting effect. She immediately presses closer to his side, like a plant growing toward the sunlight.

"I thought that if I left at a weird time, like a time he wouldn't expect a shift to end, he wouldn't look for me. But he saw me leaving, and followed me to my car."

Sheldon does not want to hear this.

A couple of sentences have never before moved him to the point of rage.

He finds his breathing is becoming rapidly constricted, his hands tightening into fists for the first time in his life. "Did he attempt to assault you?" he asks in a carefully even tone. A fresh flow of tears starts to fall as she nods, trailing a line of misery down her cheeks.

"I told him to go away, but he just kept telling me how beautiful he thought I was, how he – he wanted to…" she breaks off, crying too hard to explain. "Oh, Sheldon," she moans as he awkwardly attempts to put his arm around her. "Why can't men be like you? Why can't they just not notice me? Sometimes I just want to put a bag over my head, or poke their eyes out!" She throws herself into his chest, into the clumsy embrace of his gangly arms. That's when he can smell it on her: violence. It's in the strands of her hair, stinking like perspiration and fuel. It's the fingernail prints on her arm, the discreet split in her lip.

He wants to tell her that it would be a travesty to hide her face; that he would gladly provide the equipment for her to remove the corneas of every man she met. Hell, he would do it himself. But he doesn't for the life of him understand why. He hesitates a moment before tightening his grip on her. "I notice you, Penny," he whispers. And then to cover the sudden vulnerability he's feeling, adds: "Have you never seen a stalker movie? You never go out alone. You tell somebody."

"I know," she cries into his shoulder. He may as well have gone out into the rain, he thinks. She's crying a river into his clothes anyway. "I'm such an idiot. I'm just this stupid blonde who only gets by on her looks –"

"Blossoms," Sheldon interrupts. It surprises both of them.

"W-what?" Penny inquires, sniffing.

"You constructed one thousand Penny Blossoms in a single night."

"Well, yeah…but you guys helped. What does that have to do with –?"

"– Upon collecting our take out, you ensure that Wolowitz' meal is devoid of peanut products before leaving the restaurant."

"Just because I had to punch him in the face once doesn't mean I want him to die of anaphylactic shock."

He refuses to be beaten. He's going to get through to her even if he has to miss an entire episode of Stargate Atlantis. She's lifted her face from his shoulder to stare at him, but he can't look her in the eye. He twitches a little, gazing resolutely forward, and continues his barrage of compliments.

"You're improving significantly in your ability to understand words from my own vocabulary. A year ago would you have been able to even pronounce 'anaphylactic?'"

She smiles just the slightest bit. "You're saying I was stupid last year."

This time he does look at her, a wistful colour in his eyes. "Let me win this, Penny."

"You win everything, Sheldon."

Another thought comes to mind. "Not Halo. You've blown me into a million pieces on numerous accounts during a game of Halo."

She lets her head fall into the crook of his shoulder again and closes her eyes as he rambles on in a low tone. At some point during this she's moved her legs across his lap, and her arms now rest around his neck. If he's noticed, he hasn't said anything. She can feel his hands dance lightly over her back, the physical manifestation of the words that fall into the night. She recalls with flushed cheek the last time those hands had touched her.

They sit and murmur for an inconceivable amount of time. All they know is that the rain has stopped by the time Penny grasps the point of what he's doing. She feels a warm glow of gratitude settle into the place that earlier had been filled with fear and anger. "You can stop now," she whispers. He falls silent, breathing a sigh of relief for his vocal chords. He's still Sheldon, after all. He's Sheldon, Penny thinks to herself, though this thought has occurred so often lately that it's lost all meaning. She no longer sees him in one light. She sees Sheldon, who stands above everyone else in more respects than one; who can be simultaneously irritating and sexy when raving about physics. Who can take her violated soul and spin it until it's brand new. As uncompromising, as vain and stubborn as he can be, she has to give him credit: he does often attempt to be human. He fumbles through chitchat; he withstands her constant insistence on physical contact and stands up for Leonard when the time is right. He is staring at her, and she's staring back. She leans in to kiss him…

…but he has already turned his mouth away.

"My deepest apologies, Penny," he says quickly, "Please don't misinterpret my reaction. It would seem I have been inflicted with the basic homo sapien desire to kiss you. But if I were to kiss you now, in this particular circumstance…it would be what people in the film business call a 'cliché'. Frankly, I could not bear the tackiness."

She should be annoyed because he's just completely ruined the moment, but she's caught on the words he uttered with the least amount of emphasis. As if they don't matter, or as if he hasn't even noticed his confession.

desire to kiss you.

"I'd…I'd like to go inside now," she tells him. I'd like to kiss you too.

"Oh…yes. The rain's stopped. Good." He sits perfectly still while she disentangles herself, curiously cold as her weight leaves his lap. When he's towering over her once again, she feels the desperate need to take his hand, and does. His fingers are stiff and unpractised against hers and she realises…

Sheldon has never held hands with a woman he isn't related to.

He inspects the joining of their palms and fingers like he doesn't quite understand the mechanics of it: it's a simple enough union, their flesh and bone interlocking tightly. Yet it feels as though they're holding a flame between them.

As though intimacy can be measured in degrees and trapped within the skin. He comes to the conclusion that the only reason she's taken his hand is because she does not feel safe on her own yet. He doesn't blame her. He blames himself, surprisingly. Had he been at the restaurant only an hour earlier, Penny's dignity would not have been compromised. He ponders the ramifications of this as they meander across the lot into the hushed privacy of the lobby, up all four flights of the accursed stairs and through the threshold of Penny's apartment. He has come to another conclusion – that he seems to be softening at the edges due to Penny's influence, when he realises –

"– Oh. We seem to have arrived at your bedroom."

Letting go of her hand is easier than not.

With no contact between them, Penny starts to quiver again. The touch of his religiously washed hands had temporarily smoothed away the calloused, gritty memory of the man at the restaurant. The man with carnal lust in his eyes, with a strong arm and foul mouth –

"Penny, please refrain from crying again," Sheldon pleads. The sight of it makes his skin crawl. "Look. I'll – I'll continue to hold your hand." He catches her fingers with only a small amount of reluctance.

It's funny how often her heart controls her head.

The people who have become her closest friends are all men of science: people who know the chemistry behind emotion; who can show the act of falling in love as an equation. It doesn't make a lot of sense, that she who follows her dreams and lets her hormones get the best of her should turn to no less than the most calculating of these men and find solace. Penny is a woman with experience when it comes to men. Almost every man who's had her heart has broken it, including her own father.

She's smart enough to know she has feelings, but that's not what she's thinking of. Tonight Sheldon Cooper has saved a piece of her, and that fact alone is enough to make her kiss him.

He actually pulls away at first, shocked and stiff lipped. He moves his head back about an inch before she fills the space and catches his lips a second time. His mouth tastes like spices and reminds her of faraway places. It's bizarre; given all the physics that pours from there every day she's expected him to taste of ink and numbers and cold hard facts – the flavour of the educated. Does he even know he's had this exotic flavour of escape inside him all along?

Though he has had no practise, Sheldon does not find it difficult, what comes next. He draws her into his arms and fits his mouth to hers at a much more agreeable angle. These actions are nothing but a product of Penny's dishevelled state of mind, of her need to take affirmative action and be treated with respect after having the power taken away from her. He feels obliged to grant her this. What he doesn't expect is just how far they take it. The sounds of a door clicking shut; air being exhaled like a pant; clothes hitting the floor with a determined thud: these noises are a mystery to him because he cannot comprehend the speed at which they are occurring. When did he kick his shoes off? How did Penny come to be straddling his lap? These questions turn thin and reedy, unimportant compared to the fact that whatever they're doing, it seems to be providing Penny with the consolation she needs. It's certainly more helpful than his original idea of soup might have been.

Penny feels as if she's made of glass and that's the way he holds her, as if she could splinter at any moment. She doesn't want to be cradled, however. She's in the race of her life, trying to outrun the memories of the car park. The faster they move the easier it is to keep focused, to forget about what she's running from.

"Listen, I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are."

"Yeah…thanks. Look I'm not feeling well, I need to get home."

Her hands grip the back of Sheldon's head as she kisses him, drawing his tongue into her mouth, intending to suck the innocence from him because hers was lost long ago.

"Sorry, you're making me a little uncomfortable. Can you let me get to my car?"

"But I want to come with you. I want to –"

They both stutter as he sinks into her, bodies flowing through the motions though their minds have come to a standstill. His hands write equations into the skin of her back, calculating the exact quantity of desperation in her eyes, the urgency of the rhythm in her hips.

"Stop saying that, it's disgusting. Get out of my way so I can get to my car."

"Typical. Just because your eyes outshine the sun you think you can talk to me like I'm nothing."

"Get out of my way!" Penny gasps without meaning to. Sheldon runs a hand through her hair, smoothing away the knots.

"There there," he manages, because that's all she needs.

She nods, her eyes closed. Then she starts to move faster. They grind and spasm and she moans in equal parts fear and satisfaction. It's rough and jangling but the right kind, the kind she needs to keep her mind in the present. She drags her nails up his back, unable to forget the way she'd scraped them down his face when he wouldn't let go.

"Get off me you bastard! You're hurting my arm!!"

"Shut up, I just want to kiss you!"

Sheldon is doing his best to keep up, letting her take the lead, allowing her to tangle her fingers into his hair and tug even though it makes his eyes water. There are too many chemical reactions happening to him at once: his pupils are dilated, his arteries are constricting, and his temperature is rising to a dangerous level. Not to mention the insane speed of the electrical impulses firing through his brain. How can this mess of hormones and fingernails be the object of every man's desire? It's damaging, it's frightening…and probably a danger to his health. The next time Wolowitz brings it up he's going to have a serious debate ready. Of course all that goes out the window the moment he comes. It's like solving an equation, having a string theory epiphany and seeing the new Star Trek film all at once: all encompassing, thrilling, enough to make him quiver. He's too blinded by this exquisite torture to realise that the cause of it is in the midst of her own terrifying bliss.

Penny comes moments after Sheldon, locking against him tight enough to restrict his breathing – not that she can help it. She's never been so rattled over such a quick climax. The echoes of her screams mingle with the shouts in her mind, chasing away the demons. Beneath her closed eyes she can see herself kneeing the man in the gut, running to the door of her car and hitting the accelerator. She presses her forehead into Sheldon's shoulder, gripping him for dear life as she remembers the man's silhouette growing smaller in her rear vision mirror. She doesn't move for several minutes. The silence in the room is heavy enough to keep her pinned to Sheldon.

"Penny," he whispers eventually into her hair, "How do you feel now?"

She brushes her lips over the skin of his neck, lightly enough for it to go unfelt.

"Safe," she says and feels him exhale in relief.

They avoid eye contact as she removes herself from his lap and crawls under the covers. She buries her head into her pillow, the fabric warm beneath her fingers. Sheldon eyes the opposite side of the bed with something akin to yearning.

"I slept here last time," he says quietly, a question.

She pats the pillow. "I know."

He rises from the bed, trying to hide his modesty from her curious gaze as he pulls on his clothes.

She doesn't say anything as he slides beneath the covers fully dressed. After all, he has just gone far out of his comfort zone for her. The least she can do is let him return to it unjudged. They lie with a fault line between them that they dare not cross.

Penny doesn't mind giving him space; she's too spent to mind much about anything. Sheldon's eyes flick back and forth between the sheets and her face, never settling.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes Penny?"

"Thankyou."

He moves onto his back and stares at the ceiling. "You're welcome." He stares for all of five seconds before turning back to face her. "Penny, why did you only make your presence known to me in the garage? Leonard would have been perfectly willing and able to comfort you by highlighting your positive attributes."

"I know… but I like the way you say it."

"How exactly do I say it?"

Her smile is like candy floss, wispy and sweet. "Like they're facts, not opinions. Like if someone questioned it I could say 'go check this book out'. The Book of Penny."

Sheldon yawns and nods. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but he's willing to let it pass.