First appearance of Penny. I know. Exciting right? I promise everything will come together. Hopefully.

Three

"Sheldon?"

This is bizarre. Sheldon is always awake before Leonard. He gets up, without exception, at six-thirty every morning. He is always sitting there, in his spot, with his cereal, when Leonard wakes up. It is a constant, and it is somewhat unnerving to find that it is not the case.

He knocks on the door again, uneasily. This is Sheldon's room. People can't be in Sheldon's bedroom. But he's starting to have visions of a brutal axe murder, or suicide…

He bursts through the door. Sheldon is propped up against his bed, asleep, a notebook open in his lap and papers spread across the floor around him. The edge of what looks like a schematic is visible, protruding out of his wardrobe. Leonard picks his way through the debris, and puts two cold fingers to his friend's neck. He doesn't get as far as feeling a pulse. Sheldon jumps, his hand darting out to grab Leonard's wrist. The habitual cry of "danger!" builds in his throat, but it's only Leonard, who isn't particularly threatening. He releases his roommate's wrist.

"Hell, Sheldon!" Leonard gasps. "I thought you were dead or something!"

"You've had illogical thoughts before now, and I'm sure you will have many more, in time." Sheldon begins gathering up his papers. "What time is it?"

"Almost seven."

Sheldon's eyes widen.

"Well, I can see why you were alarmed!" He gets to his feet and hurries out into the corridor. "I think…something from the high fibre end of the shelf."

"I can't wait to try out that new, open-world PVP zone tonight," Leonard grins, following him.

"What are you talking about, Leonard?" Sheldon pulls down a box of cereal.

"It's a long weekend." Leonard shakes his head, like that explains everything. At the blank expression on his roommate's face, he adds, "You know, we always have World of Warcraft marathons on long weekends?"

"No, we have Age of Conan marathons on long weekends," Sheldon corrects, tipping cereal into a shallow bowl, "besides, I haven't had a chance to level my Rogue to level 85 yet."

"He's already level 85," Leonard grins, "you did it the night Cataclysm came out."

Sheldon decides not to question this anymore. It would probably be better just to, to use one of Penny's expressions, "go with it". So, when work is over that evening, he unlocks the apartment door with Howard and Raj breathing down his neck. They're both clutching their laptops under their arms, and when the door opens they immediately set them up on the coffee table.

"Where's Leonard?" Raj asks, the familiar WoW start-up sound escaping from the speakers on his laptop. He hastily plugs in a headset.

"He said he had to finish something up at work," Howard tells him, "wait, who's going to get the food?"

"The Thai place isn't far away, I'll go." Sheldon picks up his jacket. "Needless to say if one of you goes, you won't get my order right."

"We're not complaining, man." Howard and Raj are both already immersed in the game.

It only takes twenty minutes before Sheldon has the food, precariously balanced, in his arms. If he's honest with himself, he's quite excited to try out the new PVP zone too, especially if his rogue really is level 85 now. He almost runs back to the apartment building, and when he arrives, a harassed-looking Penny is there too, in her Cheesecake Factory uniform, massaging her lower back with one hand, clutching a shopping bag in the other, and pushing the door open with her shoulder.

"Hello, Penny," he says, as pleasantly as he can whilst trying to squeeze past her into the building, "I'm afraid you will be denied my company on the stairs, I'm in something of a hurry." He turns to take the stairs at a sprint.

"Wait, Sheldon, we really need to talk," Penny urges, "you know…about…the thing?"

"What thing?" Sheldon's brow furrows. "You'll have to be clearer, Penny." Penny groans.

"Just wait there." She stomps across the room and opens up her mailbox, sliding out a handful of junk leaflets and white bill envelopes. "We can talk in my apartment."

Sheldon hops from foot to foot in frustration.

"Penny, there are more pressing-,"

"Trust me, this is very important."

Sheldon seriously doubts this, but he knows better than to argue with Penny. He trudges up the carpeted steps after her.

"So, how was work?" She asks, winding her free arm around her shopping bag to steady it.

"Strange," Sheldon tells her truthfully, "I'm finding my own work somewhat bamboozling."

"You find something bamboozling?" Penny looks remarkably happy about this. Sheldon shakes his head – he'll never understand his neighbour. Penny unlocks her apartment door, with some difficulty.

"I would offer to help, but my own hands are somewhat full." Sheldon glances down at the bags of Thai food.

"What are you guys up to tonight?" Penny asks, going inside and dumping her shopping bag on the counter. Sheldon follows her, placing the bags of food on her coffee table.

"We're having a World of Warcraft marathon."

"Oh," Penny nods, clearly disinterested.

"Penny, what did you want to talk about?"

"Yeah, yeah sure." Penny lets out a long breath, and sits down. "I know it's been weird for a few weeks…since, you know, what happened."

"What happened?" Sheldon asks, curious.

"Yeah." Penny stares at him. "Come on Sheldon, you know what I'm talking about."

"I'm afraid I don't. Are you going to continue being this cryptic? If so, I would prefer you told me now; I have a level 85 Rogue just waiting to be played."

"Oh God," Penny buries her face in her hands, "we had sex, Sheldon."

"No we didn't," Sheldon frowns, "I would never…Sheldon Beta couldn't…you must be confused, Penny."

"I'm not confused!" Penny slumps back on the couch. "Look, whether you believe it or not, it happened. The point is, this," she curls an arm around her flat stomach, "could be yours."

"Your…stomach?"

"The baby, Sheldon."

"Oh." Sheldon blinks. "Have you considered abortion?"

"Get out!"

He only has time to gather up the food before he is shoved unceremoniously out into the corridor.

"Well, this is an interesting turn of events."

XXX

"Hey, where've you been? The food will be getting cold."

Sheldon shuts the door behind him. Howard offers a hand and Sheldon hands over one of the bags of Thai food.

"Sheldon, this is Laura."

He looks over. He hadn't noticed the girl sitting on the armchair. She smiles at him.

"Hello," he nods.

"Laura works at the university," Leonard supplies, "actually, she just started. Did you bring enough food?"

"Oh, I'm sorry to be a bother," Laura bites her lip, "if you haven't, I don't mind. I ate a big lunch."

"No, I got extra for free becauseI complained so loudly about their refusal to give me extra breading," Sheldon is quite proud of this, "who's got the extension cord?"

"It's over here." Raj reaches down and picks up the cord, which already has two laptops plugged into it. Sheldon brings his own over.

"Oh, I plugged mine in over there," Laura glances over at a plug point on the wall, "that's okay?"

"Sure, you can plug in anywhere. This is a beautiful laptop, by the way." Leonard stares at it while he puts down the Thai food, now on plates. Sheldon looks over the top of his own computer. Leonard's right – Laura's laptop is wonderful, an Alienware M17x unless he's much mistaken.

"We thought we could start out with some level 85 battlegrounds, then do some raiding, and then hit the new PVP zone," Howard tells Sheldon.

"Well, let's not dilly-dally," Sheldon says, reaching for his plate, "I don't want to have to queue for the server."

XXX

Sheldon falls into bed at some point the following afternoon. The plan is to sleep for four hours, and then hit a few more battlegrounds…

However tired he might be, Sheldon finds himself unable to drift off. There's too much on his mind. First, there are the plans for what should be a functioning time machine, hidden away at the bottom of his wardrobe. A time machine…designed by an alternate version of himself…he can barely believe it. Second, there is Penny's staunch belief that Sheldon Beta engaged in coitus with her. And third, there is the knowledge that he is trapped in a parallel universe, with Sheldon Beta trapped in Universe Alpha, probably messing up his schedule, his routine, and his work.

Dear Lord, it's like some kind of twisted version of the wording on the Twilight blurb.

Maybe a Sheldon's Log entry will help him to clear his head a little. He rolls over, snaps on the light, and reaches into the drawer of his night table. Sitting up, he opens the thick notebook.

He sits up a little straighter. His log of social interactions is sure to tell him about this whole affair with Penny. It will confirm or, more likely, deny what she has told him. It will most likely contain information about the time machine. Why didn't he think of this before? He glances at the clock. It's a choice between much-needed sleep, and the truth.

He turns back to the Log.