Title: Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt
Author: Talitha Koum
Spoilers: Recent episodes.
Rating: PG-13 for mild language.
Word Count: 3600+
Disclaimer: I do not own The Big Bang Theory. Insert witticism here.
ooo
Squeak, squeak.
Penny flinched.
Squeak, swish.
She opened her eyes.
Squeak, squeak, squeak.
"Ugh. What time is it?"
Sheldon was busy scribbling on his board. Penny gave him ten seconds to put down his marker and answer her question before she started chucking whatever she could get her hands on. Almost precognitive, he looked at his wristwatch just as Penny was reaching for her shoes, which were set side-by-side under the coffee table with the Nerf guns. He laughed at himself, double-taking Penny's scowl, and then spoke soberly, "My watch stopped when I died."
"That's funny to you?"
"No. It's funny I keep checking it like it's still working. It used to be linked to the atomic clock."
"Ah." Penny yawned. "The only way I can keep living here with you is if we make a don't-wake-Penny-up-before-11:00 rule."
"Yes. Well." Sheldon capped his marker. "It's a quarter 'til. Not only that, Leonard's on his way to collect you."
"Already?"
"Penelope, the man wants to have sexual relations with you. Of course he would go on a date during his lunch break rather than wait until after work like someone of substantial intelligence."
"Cheese 'n crackers." Penny chewed on her bottom lip. "I feel like a douche. I never specified a time or anything." She hurried through The Drill. A four-step, foolproof pre-date routine that never failed to deliver. 1.) Smell good: a conservative application of men's cologne. There was nothing that drove a man crazier than the smell of another man on a woman he wanted for himself. 2.) Hair: classy, but accessible. 3.) Dress: yellows, pinks, and blues. Always loud. Pastels washed her out. 4.) Make-up: light and natural, concentration on the eyes.
In the course of step three, Penny discovered her clothes were missing from the guest room. She padded into the living room in nothing but a towel and asked, "Where's all my stuff? Not suspended on a wire, I hope."
"Your clothes are hanging in my closet and folded neatly in my chest of drawers in my bedroom. I expected you to unpack days ago, but you never did so I designed you an organizational paradigm, sorting your dresses, shirts, pants, and undergarments by color, label, and season. Though, I couldn't decide which panties you wore on Mondays."
Is he for real?
Penny snorted at herself.
"There's nothing funny about-"
"No," she interrupted him. "I mean, thank you."
"I didn't touch your toiletries or your collection of Care Bears."
Penny flashed him a thumbs up and wandered off to his bedroom to change. She chose a pair of blue jeans that made her butt look phenomenal and a yellow blouse she liked to wear when she was feeling particularly happy. And, yeah, she was pretty happy this morning. The best she had felt in a long, long time.
"How do I look?" Penny struck a pose, squaring her shoulders against the wall in the hall where Sheldon could see her from where he stood stressing over his formulas.
He bequeathed her the stingiest of once-overs. "You're a pretty woman, considering your symmetrical features and low body fat Western culture deems attractive."
"Oh, stop. You think I'm hot."
"Hot is not a term I would use to describe you."
Penny sauntered toward him. "What word would you use to describe me, then?"
Sheldon turned his back on her. "Words." He looked at his watch, trying to be sarcastic. "What a shame. You don't have time to listen to me ramble a list of synonyms for beautiful."
Penny's heart swelled. She felt as if she had to swallow hard before it floated out of her mouth and bobbed around on the ceiling. She skipped to Sheldon's side and kissed him on the cheek. He wasn't solid so her face melded with his like a blast of cold air. "You're sweet."
Sheldon said nothing.
Penny grabbed her purse and waved goodbye. It wasn't until she arrived at Starbucks with Leonard that she noticed Sheldon had slipped a keychain-sized can of pepper spray close to her wallet.
ooo
Penny secretly hated Starbucks. The coffee was good, the atmosphere was good, but the pretense limit was almost always exceeded. Honestly. There were only so many beatniks in Pasadena. What were the odds that every single Abercrombie and Fitch wearing college student with a Mac would converge in the same place at the same time to type their little screen plays?
Penny smiled when she thought, Sheldon would know.
Yeah. She preferred gas station coffee, but the local Shell wasn't exactly the stuff of first dates.
"El Buck-oh de Star-oh," she snorted.
Leonard raised his eyebrows. "That's technically incorrect."
"Oh, I know." Penny waved him off. She grabbed her caramel macchiato, suddenly regretting her beverage of choice, casting a wistful glance at the green tea blend. I bet Sheldon would enjoy something like that, she mused.
Leonard followed Penny to a table by the window. The intoxicating aroma of sugar and cream and the feel of the heat outside warm her bare skin was just what the doctor ordered. Penny crossed her legs. She smirked when the tips of her toes grazed Leonard's shin and he blushed as red as the light fixtures.
"S-So," Leonard stuttered. "Where did you go to college?"
Everything went south from there. Her optimism, the taste of her coffee, even the sun didn't shine as brightly as it had just seconds before. Penny hid her disappointment behind the lid of her cup and countered his question with, "Where did you go?"
Leonard took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Penny saved herself from having to own up to dropping out of community college. She sipped her coffee, nodding her head whenever she felt it was appropriate, and deviated from the conversation as soon as she could without appearing too anxious to change the subject. "You said you met Sheldon once."
Leonard's face fell. His eyes shifted around the room and back again. "Yeah. Once," he said in a way that hinted he was coming upon his original question: "Why do you call him Sheldon?"
Crap.
Penny shrugged her shoulders. "I've been living in his apartment for a few days already. I guess I feel like I know the guy."
Leonard laughed. "If you really knew him, you'd wish you didn't."
A flare of resentment caught Penny unawares. She was more protective of Sheldon than she realized. She grabbed her cup with both hands, hooking her thumbs around the rim of its lid. Even Jack Johnson playing softly over the radio didn't take the edge off Leonard's insult. "What do you mean?" Penny prayed to God he wouldn't be able to tell how her voice was stiff with offense.
"Dr. Cooper was batcrap crazy."
He had a point.
"It was always his way or the highway. He belittled the work of his coworkers. He would always embarrass himself and those around him-quoting this, referencing that-and the sad part was he didn't seem to care that everybody made fun of him behind his back."
Penny's cup began to dimple. She dropped her hands into her lap so she wouldn't make a mess.
...you really think that you're immune to it's gonna get the best of you... Jack sang.
"People made fun of him?"
"It was kind of hard not to."
No wonder Sheldon was poisoned against Leonard. Penny liked to think of herself as the kind of girl who didn't judge books by their covers or even their opening chapters. She liked to think of herself as the kind of girl who looked for the best in people. There were only a few exceptions and that was Kurt, Stacy (the whore from Omaha who broke her brother's heart), and possibly Leonard, depending on how he answered, "Did you make fun of him?"
"No. Never." Leonard sank in his seat. "I had nothing but respect for the man. He was brilliant."
Penny leaned closer to Leonard across the table. "How did Shel-Dr. Cooper die?"
"He, uh, got sick."
"How?"
"Can we talk about something else?" Leonard pleaded, whiney. "All this talk of Dr. Cooper makes me think you believe in ghosts or something."
"I do believe in ghosts."
If it was possible for their conversation to plummet further south, it did.
ooo
Worst. Date. Ever.
Not only had she managed to aggravate Leonard over her obsession-as he called it-with Sheldon, she felt like a giant loser. How could she compete with a scientist? Sure, Leonard tried to make her feel more important than she really was. He dubbed her a carbohydrate delivery system, but that just pissed Penny off since she didn't have a clue how that made her job more glamorous.
"Call it whatever you want. I make minimum wage."
Thank the Lord they rode in separate vehicles, what with Leonard having work to do. Penny's car would have further shamed her making its bi-monthly clunkity-clunk sounds. So needy. What did it want this time? Oil? Every time she turned around it wanted oil. "Fine!" she snapped, pressing her pointer finger against the dash while she drove home, mistakenly taking her eyes off the road and almost causing a five-car pile-up. "You'll get your oil, but you can forget about getting your tires rotated!"
Clunk. Hiss. Sputter.
Penny cut across traffic before her car wheezed its final breath and died between the lines of her parking spot.
Her day off was really starting to suck balls.
ooo
Penny made herself busy so she wouldn't have to discuss her date with Sheldon. Her attempts to avoid conversation with 4B's resident ghost were unwarranted. Sheldon was still pouring over his boards, his back hunched and his expression grim. She put her toiletries away, hiding her tampons behind the mirror over the sink in the bathroom. She collected all her dirty clothes and dumped them in the hamper in Sheldon's bedroom. There was little else she could do with the rest of her stuff, already ironed and sorted. As Leonard said, Dr. Cooper was freakin' brilliant.
Penny plopped down on the couch. She watched Sheldon think…watched his fingers curl in sync, twirling the barrel of his marker up and over his knuckles, catching the cap in his palm, reverse and begin again. He was surprisingly dexterous. And ambidextrous, switching hands, allowing the other to rest in the crook of his arm. Penny was entranced watching his nimble fingers at work, occasionally pausing in their acrobatics to make a mark with a precise flick of the wrist, the illusory muscle in his forearm jumping. Then he would take a step back and stare hungrily at his progress.
"You never told me what you did on Mondays."
"Yes I did."
"What? When?"
"Yesterday. I told you it was miserable not to be able to smell or taste Thai on Monday nights. Monday Night is Thai Night." Sheldon capped his marker. "I have no need to eat so-" He turned to face her, his eyes glinting suggestively.
Penny felt the heat rise. She pulled on the ends of her bangs to make whatever-it-was go away.
"You should eat Thai food."
"Why?"
"You'll love it. Grab your keys."
Alarms sounded off in Penny's head. She couldn't drive. Her car, rest in peace, was in no condition to carry her anywhere unless she wanted to join Sheldon in the afterlife. "No, no. I'm fine. I think I'll just stay home, watch the boob tube, and eat some ice cream."
"Nonsense. You're eating Thai." Sheldon folded his arms across his chest. The light from the apartment and his transparency heightened the definition in the backs of his hands and his wrists and his forearms.
"Fine," Penny heard herself say. "But I feel like walking."
ooo
Walking was a mistake. The Thai food restaurant wasn't far, but Sheldon demanded she buy the right kind of mustard at the right super market and the right low sodium soy sauce on the right shelf and the right bottle and the right everything. Penny thought she was going to die, ordering her food to his specifications, him insisting that his order was the best order. She couldn't stand the curious looks she received when she quoted Sheldon's dying words (hardy har-har) to the confused and irritated employees.
White rice, not brown. When they didn't comply with Sheldon's preparatory terms, he ordered her to protest. Vociferously. Penny put her foot down, telling Sheldon to leave her the Hell alone, but then she was escorted outside for some fresh air because, hello, she was talking to herself. On the plus side, the manager was terrified she was ill. He let her have her meal for free and made her leave.
"I can't argue with you in public, Sheldon."
People skirted around her on the street.
The impression of insanity did her no favors. People made snide comments. Followed-
Followed her?
Penny looked over her shoulder.
Hot damn, she thought miserably.
Penny picked up her pace, more and more aware of the hooded individual shadowing her footsteps. Sheldon was unmindful, complaining about her lack of complaining at the restaurant. Penny reached into her purse for her pepper spray.
"And furthermore-" Sheldon exhaled quickly through his nose, though it wasn't necessary, and turned around to face the man Penny assumed he hadn't noticed. He appeared to him. "Penelope wants nothing to do with you. Go away."
The man stumbled in surprise. When he reached inside his hoodie for his switchblade, Sheldon grabbed him by the arm and steered him in the opposite direction. Though the young man cut Sheldon across the chest, whether accidentally or on purpose, Sheldon felt nothing.
"I suggest you stay in school." He pushed him on his way.
A shimmering gash gleamed across Sheldon's chest, but it stitched itself together fairly quickly. He ignored the wound. If, in fact, it qualified as a wound.
Penny gaped. "I can't believe you just did that!"
"Why would I not do that? You're important to me."
"I'm important to you?"
Sheldon made a face. "If I wasn't dead, I would have run away."
"Why?"
"Wh-" Sheldon's mouth fell open like she had asked him why two plus two equaled four. "Honestly, Penelope, nothing inside your purse is worth as much as your life."
"But it's the principle of the thing!"
"No." Sheldon pierced her with a glare that made her shrink two-feet tall on the inside. "No. It is not the principle of the thing. If I wasn't dead-if I wasn't absolutely sure no danger would come to you by resisting robbery and scaring the living daylights out of that man-I would not have compromised your safety just because Hollywood set the precedent to physically fight off an assailant, thus winning fair lady's heart. Bravado is not important to me, you are important to me."
"I'm important to you?"
Sheldon shook his head. "This conversation is starting to circle. Let's go home."
They walked back to the apartment in companionable silence. Sheldon clucked and hissed when Penny swung the bag of Thai food in time with her stride. ("Would it interest you to know that, in an alternate universe, you were known as the Queen of Hearts?")
As they walked past a neighborhood park, Penny said, "I need to rest my feet." She hopped the short fence, the gravel crunching satisfyingly underneath her sandals. Sheldon ghosted along behind her. He kept whatever comments he was bound to have to himself. Thankfully. The less they spoke of their walking instead of driving, the better. She didn't want to have to explain her engine troubles.
Sheldon was suddenly loitering by the swing set. The streetlights contrasted his profile with the night. He looked like a creeper, as thin and awkward as his frame. Penny set her takeout on the ground and tied the plastic bag into a bow.
"How was your date with Leonard?" Sheldon asked.
Wait. What?
"Fun." Penny knelt in the seat of a swing. She sat on the backs of her calves and rocked at her leisure. "There weren't any sparks. Maybe I should try again?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Leonard is not meant for you. Not in this universe." His lips twitched. "Or any other universe, for that matter." Sheldon grabbed the swing, pushing Penny to stop. He looked down into her face and said, "Would it interest you to know that, in an alternate universe, we're neighbors in the same apartment building, 4A and 4B respectively?"
All these alternate universes were starting to make Penny jealous. She grabbed Sheldon's wrists, wanting to touch him again. It was her way of telling herself and all her other, alternate selves, Ha! I got a ghost and you don't, so suck it. She couldn't fool her heart, however, and it withered like a dying flower. Penny traced the veins in Sheldon's forearms to his elbows, innocent of what she was doing.
"Penny?"
Uh-oh. Time to dial her big ol' five-ness back down to zero.
Penny stood on her knees so she and Sheldon were face-to-face. "Yes?"
Or not.
Sheldon recoiled, forgetting he was corporeal perhaps, and so pulled the swing forward in his retreat. Penny lost her balance. She wrapped her arms around Sheldon's very solid neck. For a moment they intermingled, their noses smothering, and then Sheldon dropped the swing.
Penny fell against him. He caught her reflexively, overcompensating by mistake, crushing the small of her back in a bear hug. Sheldon's hands were panicked and contorted. His wrists bent to escape the feel of Penny's body on the tips of his fingers even though he couldn't technically feel her there, but his soul wasn't as flexible as he would have liked it to be.
Sheldon squeaked.
All at once, Penny fazed through him. Before she face-planted the ground, he grabbed her from behind, under her arms, and helped her stand to her feet.
"YOU DROPPED ME!"
"I did not drop you. I reestablished-"
"You dropped me."
"This is no time for semantics, Penelope."
"Don't give me that Penelope crap!" Penny grabbed her food. She hoofed it all the way back to the apartment building without another word. She felt angry. She had to feel angry. She needed to feel angry. If she didn't feel angry, what was she going to feel? What sort of emotions were buoying around in her chest, pressing hard against her lungs and ribs, making her think she was bound to levitate at any given minute? No. She didn't want to know.
Why didn't she want to know?
She didn't want to know why she didn't want to know. Anger was good. Anger was safe. Anger rooted her feet to the ground. She needed to keep her wits about her. She needed to-
Why was she running?
It felt good. Very good. Better than the emotional chaffing she was currently experiencing. So she ran. Or scuffled. Flip-flops were hard to run in. She ascended the stairs like the world was hot on her trail and purposefully ignored Sheldon already sitting in his spot when she opened the door to 4A.
Penny stuffed the Thai in the refrigerator, Sheldon following her every move with his eyes. His annoying, effervescent eyes. She sat beside him on the middle cushion and fell over on her right side in a heap. "I don't feel so good," she gasped.
"That would be because you just ran half a mile before stretching properly. Are you not hungry?"
"Not anymore." Penny curled her legs to her chest. "I just want to sleep."
"Shouldn't you go to bed if you're tired?"
"Look. If you don't want me to sleep on the couch, say so! Don't be passive aggressive about it!"
"Passive aggressive? I was offering to turn down the-"
"Fine! You know what? Fine. I'll sleep in your stupid bed." But she didn't. No sooner did Penny shut herself in his bedroom did she shun the sight of his bed and the potential suffocation that would bludgeon her senses if she slept there. She couldn't stand the thought of smelling Sheldon on his pillow, even if it was just his detergent, or thinking about his living body nestled under the sheets. Absolutely not.
Penny fled to the spare bedroom where she snuggled in her own comforter on the floor, clinging to the dregs of her anger as she fell asleep.
ooo
Sheldon didn't understand women when he was alive so there was a Snowball's chance in a CAT scanner he understood them any better now that he was dead. He looked at Penny curled in the fetal position flanked by her garbage bags of stuffed animals he hadn't known what to do with, his head cocked to one side. He didn't dare to tuck her in like the night before, but he did kneel on one knee and steal another kiss from her lips.
He lingered.
Again, he felt nothing.