Title: Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt
Author: Talitha Koum
Spoilers: Recent episodes.
Rating: PG-13 for mild language.
Word Count: 3800+
Disclaimer: I do not own The Big Bang Theory. Insert witticism here.
A/N: Sorry this took so long. My family decided to take an impromptu vacation and I was stranded without my docs for a while. I apologize for spelling/grammatical errors in advance.
ooo
Penny opened her eyes. She found herself in Sheldon's bed on her back. The sun shone bright through his window, casting its glaring brilliance over all the books on the shelves and the comics in their appropriate bins, playing off the plastic.
Penny squinted. She rolled over on her side and stifled a scream when she saw Sheldon lying next to her. As always, he was wearing his Green Lantern t-shirt and his khaki pants, but something was off. Really off. Penny leaned close while she tried to figure out what it was that didn't sit right with her.
His chest was moving. Up and down, up and down.
He was breathing.
Penny hovered her hand over Sheldon's mouth. His breath warmed her fingers. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "Sheldon!" she whispered, afraid she was going to dispel the moment. "Sheldon! You're-"
ooo
Penny opened her eyes. She found herself in the spare bedroom on the floor, rolled up like a burrito in her comforter. She begrudgingly looked on the bright side of things, the dregs of her dream taunting her to grumble inappropriate phrases. She hadn't set her alarm last night so she was lucky to have woken up in time to get ready for her shift at the Cheesecake Factory. Also, she was starving. Her stomach growled something fierce.
Penny stood to her feet and rubbed her aching back. She really needed to get over whatever problems she had with Sheldon's bed. Like, soon.
Penny wrapped her comforter around her shoulders. She padded into the living room feeling guilty about her behavior last night, but she justified her hissy fit by reminding herself how unfair it was of the universe to let her develop a relationship with someone who was predestined to leave her behind, which pressed her buttons. She was the one who did the leaving. She left home, she left Kurt, and she was going to leave Sheldon.
Penny cursed under her breath. The only difference between home and Kurt and Sheldon was that Sheldon hadn't done anything to warrant a Adios, amigo! She wasn't going to start making mountains out of molehills, either, and fabricate reasons to the contrary no matter how crazy Sheldon acted.
Penny stalled at the scene before her. On second thought…
The living room was in a state of disarray. Sheldon sat in front of his computer, the blue glow of its screen casting a neon contour around his head and neck. Penny watched him hack a bank account, a dubious frown on her face.
"Hello, Penelope," Sheldon murmured, striking a final key with a flourish. He spun around in his chair. "I trust you're feeling less hormonal this morning."
Penny raised her eyebrows at the mess. "And I trust you're out of your mind."
"Body. I'm out of body, not out of mind." Sheldon ran his fingers through his hair, which stayed the same. Not a strand out of place. (Penny wished her hair would behave the same. Also, she wished she could see an unkempt Sheldon for once in her life.) "I'm stuck. It really isn't that difficult a hurdle to leap, if you'll excuse the aphorism, but I'm trying to prove my thesis with my three-year-dead mind so as to make your miraculous discovery more believable."
"You're trying to write a paper with thoughts you had three years ago?"
"That's what I said, yes."
"Is that even possible?"
Sheldon gestured with open arms. "Apparently."
Penny rolled her eyes. She left him to his own, whack devices and ventured to the refrigerator for the leftover Thai food. She prepared her breakfast, only remembering to grab the soy sauce and the mustard when Sheldon reminded her that she bought them. She sure as Hell wasn't going to ignore his suggestions after all the trouble it took to appease him yesterday. "I had the weirdest dream last night," Penny said, licking her fingers.
Sheldon was busy clearing the coffee table where a pile of sugar cubes and teabags had accumulated in foreign patterns Penny didn't know or want to know. "Really? The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. I've read The Content Analysis of Dreams and I do believe that understanding one's subconscious is pertinent to good health."
Penny stared at him, her mouth slightly agape.
Sheldon motioned for her to take a seat.
Penny snapped out of her trance, gathered her plate of Thai, and sat in Sheldon's spot, her comforter belling around the couch.
He glared.
She moved to the middle cushion and stuck out her tongue.
"Only the dreamer can truly analyze their dream, but asking the right questions is key. Is it your intent to analyze your dream, Penelope?"
She nodded her head.
"What do you remember feeling?"
Penny shrugged. She stuffed her mouth full before she said, "I feld happeh."
"Interesting. Negative emotions are much more common than positive emotions. Go on."
Penny swallowed. "I think it had something to do with you. Did you come in the guest room last night?" She was beginning to categorize Sheldon's ticks by now. It wasn't a twitchy eye that piqued her curiosity or anything like that, but it might as well have been. He offered her the same expression the night they first met when he said, "I'm not used to being incorporeal so I apologize for appearing to you thus. It's unintentional." And the time he told her, "I meant that I only ever appeared to you, which was an accident!"
Shitfire! He was lying!
"You came in my room last night, didn't you?" Penny grinned wickedly.
"It helps me work if I know you're sleeping well."
Truth.
Penny closed her eyes and slumped against the couch. She doubted she would catch him fibbing again so soon. He was too smart for that. "Whatever." Penny grabbed the remote off the end table and turned on the television, smashing the power button like it was Sheldon's head. "Take a load off, bright eyes."
"What about your dream?"
It was her turn to lie. "Not important."
"Whoo, boy, you're all over the place this morning." He sat down beside her.
Penny squealed, flipping a couple of channels in reverse. "City of Angels," she crooned. "I love this movie."
"Of course you would."
"It's kinda ironic, isn't it?"
Sheldon sniffed. "I find it hard to believe that a woman of her intelligence and profession would deem it wise to ride down the middle of a street on a bicycle with no hands and her eyes closed." He pointed. "She's just asking to die."
Penny raked her teeth against her fork while she ate, causing Sheldon to curl his lip. "Poor Seth."
Sheldon said nothing.
Penny fanned her eyes before she started to cry. Meg Ryan was beautiful even as she died. "Don't go with them, you stupid bitch," she cursed. "I mean, can't you just hang on? For Seth? Good God, I would." She leaned over through Sheldon to grab the Rubix Cube tissue box. Yet again, she surprised herself at knowing when, for sure, he was corporeal and when he wasn't. Sheldon didn't seem to mind her intrusion, but he turned to face the lower half of her body while she was in transit, stirring her insides. Penny had grown accustomed to the iciness. Nothing could ease the shock of him moving through her, though.
"Penelope." Sheldon's voice rumbled in her chest.
Penny sat up. She could feel the verge of his skin creeping along her shoulders and the back of her neck as if she were pulling herself out of a pool of water. She watched the couch waver and Sheldon's face materialize at her lips. She gasped at the thought of having kissed him in reverse, pulling her nose out from his, mimicking last night's escapade.
Sheldon's eyes were closed.
Penny's breath skated across his cheek, cotton white, but she wasn't cold. Oh, no. She was hot.
"I would rather've had...one breath of her hair...one kiss of her mouth...one touch of her hand...than eternity without it. One," Seth lamented.
Sheldon opened his eyes. They were intensely blue. Penny couldn't help lowering her gaze to his lips. His bowed lips. It was instinct. Being this close to someone, even if they were dead, was heart pounding. Penny breathed in and out, louder than she intended. Sheldon's mouth was kind of pretty. The planes of his face were precise, much like his science. His philtrum was long, dark by a five 'o clock shadow he would never be able to shave. His chin harmonized with the curvy plumpness of his lower lip, complementing the shape of his jaw. Sheldon's mouth glistened when he spoke her name a second time.
Penny wondered what ectoplasm tasted like. She wet her mouth, the tip of her tongue skating the iciness of Sheldon's upper lip by accident. Totally by accident. Corporeal or incorporeal, she couldn't tell. He was freezing, naturally. Her whole body seized up at the contact. It was like the first plunge into a pool on a hot, summer day. She gasped out loud when she felt his lips part in response.
"Penny…"
Whoa.
Penny quickly and efficiently turned the tension on its head. She was very proficient, having learned to dissuade affections via a ploy her sister dubbed The 180. If not for Sheldon, seeing as something of this persuasion was bound to not affect him, then for herself and her post-breakup five-ness. There must be something wrong with me, she worried. "Pay attention to Seth, Dr. Cooper," Penny spoke in a cutesy voice. "Or else you'll miss out."
Sheldon turned away from her, glaring at the sight of the fallen angel body surfing in the ocean. "When they ask me about the least favorite part of my afterlife, I'll tell them it was you."
Penny laughed.
ooo
"I just had an epiphany, Penelope."
"No."
"Let me escort you to the Cheesecake Factory."
"No."
"But I think I'm on to some-"
"No."
"If I help you perform your menial job, the part of my brain that-"
"No." Penny pulled the curling iron from her hair. "A million times, no!"
"I'll give you money."
"For what?" she snapped without thinking.
"Your car."
Penny started, burning herself with the curling iron. "Damn." She stuck her finger in her mouth. "Ho' issh et dat oo know a'wout muh cah?"
Sheldon coerced her hand into his, freezing her blistered finger. "This isn't the only universe where you fail to keep your vehicle properly maintained."
Penny shivered.
"That reminds me. It's chilly out. I'll grab my jacket for you."
"I'm fine."
"You won't be."
Penny scrunched her nose. "It's sixty degrees outside!"
"I don't want you catching a cold," Sheldon dropped her hand. "I don't want you to get sick."
"I won't get sick."
"You can't know that." Sheldon looked at them in the mirror. (Penny was mildly surprised that she could see his reflection. Or was that vampires?) "I'll keep my jacket on my person. If I so much as suspect you're chilly, you're wearing it. No ifs, ands, or buts, Penelope."
Penny was hesitant to ask, "Is that how you died? Did you get sick?"
Just as hesitant, Sheldon answered, "Something like that."
ooo
"The Odd Ball needs its ticket." Sheldon announced, unseen to and unheard by anyone else but Penny. Even the tacky jacket she refused to wear was imperceptible. Penny had yet to figure that one out. "Tables six and seven require pre-bus."
Penny was thoroughly irritated with Sheldon's OCD tendencies until she got her hands on her tips. With Sheldon cracking his verbal whip, reciting to her the orders she needn't write down thanks to his eidetic memory, she was hustlin' and bustlin' and making bank.
She could get used to this.
Sheldon had walked with her to the Cheesecake Factory corporeal. He had no fear of anyone taking notice of him on the street, though, and wasn't dissuaded to accompany her. When Penny had asked him why he didn't walk around corporeal last night, he'd said something along the lines of, "The places we visited were my Monday night haunts, once upon a time. I was sure someone would recognize me."
"It's been three years!" she'd exclaimed.
"Penelope, Penelope, Penelope."
"What, what, what?"
"Nobody forgets this face."
Their teamwork hit a bump in the road when Sheldon's incessant talking distracted Penny to where she bussed a table prematurely and its customer-even though she promised to reorder his food, no charge-called her an idiot.
Penny grit her teeth. She was ready and rearing to defend herself when the man's drink spilled in his lap of its own accord.
Thus, Penny's frown turned upside down. Her smile was so sugary sweet it just might have given birth to unicorns and rainbows in one of Sheldon's alternate universes. She mopped up the man's mess, pampering his ego in the process. She bent over his table, cocked her hips to one side, and wiped it down most unproductively. The customer fished for his wallet at once.
"This," he said, his double-chin wobbling "is for you." He slipped a solitary dollar into the middle pouch of Penny's apron. Deep.
Someone is half an inch away from suckin' hind tit on a two-tit sow. Penny raised her pitcher of water to dump on his head when her crotch literally froze over.
The man withdrew his hand, panic-stricken. Tears welled in his eyes and he stumbled from the restaurant. His Pillsbury doughboy whimpering (Hoo-hoo!) parted the crowd like the Red Sea.
"You're welcome," Sheldon said from out of nowhere.
Penny gasped. She tucked her hair behind her ears, hoping to hide the color in her cheeks. "What did you do?"
"I grabbed his fingers."
Penny blushed harder. Not so much that Sheldon would come to her rescue. No, no. She half expected him to be a hero. She blushed because, fleetingly, his hand had been-well-where it shouldn't have been. The fact that Sheldon had been inside of her, but not in that way, was truly weird. "You grabbed his fingers." Penny's voice cracked. "There?"
Sheldon blinked. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
He wasn't getting it.
"You just-" Penny set her pitcher down on the table with more force than she intended. Water splashed her arm. "-invaded my personal space, okay?"
A busboy walked through Sheldon, temporarily dissolving him from view. Still, he asked her, "And this morning? Was that not an invasion of personal space?"
Penny erroneously tried to throw water in his face. Instead, she drenched Leonard.
Wait.
Leonard?
Penny dropped her pitcher. "Oh my God!"
Leonard was shocked, as was everyone else in the Cheesecake Factory.
"Hiya, Penny," he croaked, waving a little. "I thought I'd come and see how you were doing. Maybe order a burger…" His voice died.
"I didn't know you-It was an accident, I-Sheldon-" There was no explaining this. Penny excused herself.
ooo
Sheldon found Penny in the produce cooler between the lemons of the lettuce. He shut the cooler door to give them some privacy. It latched closed from the outside, but it didn't lock. The accidentally-stuck-inside-a-restaurant-freezer only happened in movies, not in real life. Sheldon had a feeling no one would disturb them. Hopefully. With a deep breath he didn't need, he solidified himself, the mere decision to do so bending his soul to his will.
In the world of metaphors, Penny was a time bomb. Defusing her would require the utmost delicacy. She had the potential and the temper to make things very ugly very fast.
"Are you alright?"
Penny refused to look at him. She sat on a stack of wooden crates, her knees drawn beneath her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins. "Oh, yeah. I'm great. I was only sexually harassed by some jerk. I only embarrassed my friend in front of the entire restaurant and hurt his feelings by accident."
Sheldon took one step forward, crinkling the ice underneath the soles of his shoes. He reminded himself, Don't rush. Sudden movements were not in his favor.
Penny cut her emerald eyes at him. "Go away." She meant the opposite. But of course she meant the opposite. She was a woman. "I just need a minute by myself."
Sheldon took another step. "No."
"I don't have the patience for your sympathies today."
"I'm not here to sympathize."
"Why are you here, then?"
Sheldon took another step. "I don't understand why you're upset."
"You wouldn't." Penny glared at her shoes, not seeing the scuffmarks or the crusted bits of mashed potatoes, but something else. "I thought..." Penny furrowed her eyebrows. The freezer's archaic units killed the silence she wrought, growling loudly. Waterfalls of icy air slathered the walls and the floor. The produce cooler could have passed for the set of an MTV music video, Sheldon thought, as if he knew anything about music television. "...I thought I was supposed to feel something, you know? I want to feel something."
Sheldon's soul tingled at her words. "Feel what?"
"Well…it's…Leonard…"
The tingling subsided.
"I feel nothing, though. He would be good for me. So why isn't this working? Is it supposed to be this way or am I just callous?"
Sheldon's nonexistent heart sank to the bottom of his feet. He hated the sensitivity of the human soul and he almost didn't have the means to take another step. He hung his head, wracking his three-year-dead brain, sorely disappointed when he discovered that he hadn't planned ahead any farther.
Penny pursed her lips. "Your silence isn't very reassuring."
Sheldon didn't think Penny was callous. It was apparent, if only to him, that Leonard and Penny were not a match made in Heaven. Why can't Penny see that? he wondered. If anything, she's blind.
"What if!" Penny's eyes widened. "What if Kurt broke me?"
Such drama. Weren't all women silly about love? "Not possible."
"What? Why?"
"You feel something for me." The comment was out of Sheldon's mouth before he could revise and edit. Unfortunately, there was no reset button for their conversation. It was too early to egg a discussion about his feelings and her feelings. Sheldon had witnessed enough alternate universes to know that their relationship was something of a landmine.
When Penny answered him, her tone was indifferent. "It's not the same." She dipped her chin and pierced Sheldon with an ardency he was sure would destroy his entire world if she zeroed in on him exclusively for more than a second. "Right?"
"Sure," was all he said, having gotten his hopes up.
"The feelings I have for you and the feelings I have for-well-they're completely different. Leonard..." Penny tried to find the words that weren't there. She waved her hands in circular motions, coaxing vocabulary. Then she played a wild card. "You bring out the worst in me, you know? I don't think this living arrangement is working. I'm making you miserable. I'm making Leonard miserable. Maybe it's best if I move out. Let you rest in peace or whatever."
The tingling returned. "You bring out the worst in me, too, Penelope." Sheldon couldn't stop himself, yet he found it difficult to make his voice audible to her, "And the best."
Penny smiled. She batted her apron and stood, graceful like only she could be. "Really?"
"I don't tell lies."
"Oh, I see." Penny waved her hands. "And that whole I didn't mean to appear to you thing? Was that not a lie?"
Sheldon struggled to avoid looking into Penny's eyes. He failed. Every bat of her eyelashes felt like a hammer's blow to his poor, unfortunate soul. Any more of this and he would lose his grip on reality and succumb to death. So, in that regard, Penny was killing him.
Sheldon turned and walked away.
Penny stuttered, "W-Wait! Don't be such a coward!"
"Coward? The audacity!" He spun on his heel wanting to berate Penny, not step into her.
Sheldon grunted at the impact. The feel of Penny's body fitting so perfectly against his body? The feel of her breasts against his chest? The feel of her breath hot on his shirt? Unforthcoming. Sheldon imagined what it must be like, anyway. His skin would flush. His pupils would dilate. All the usual symptoms. He looked down at her, disgusted with himself. Academia was not the soul's passion. It had no desire to win a Nobel or change the world's way of thinking. All it wanted were two things. To reunite with the God who created it and lavish its mate with pure, unadulterated love. Sheldon was never the type of person to fall victim to his feelings. He was never the type of person to set aside his academic goals for the sake of a pretty face, but neither his mind nor his body were a distraction at this point in time. He was full of love he never had the change to share and his every, waking thought was consumed with the moment he would finally give in; the moment he would finally-
Penny misinterpreted Sheldon's groan. "Did I say coward?" She waved her hands in good favor. "Silly me!"
"Penelope." Sheldon grabbed her wrist before she could escape, a buzz of longing in his ears. "Who is calling whom..." He hugged her against him. "...a coward?" He expected Penny to run away or punch him in his illusory gut, but she didn't. She hugged him in return.
Penny slipped her arms beneath his jacket and around his back.
Feeling nothing, Sheldon decided, This is my eternal damnation.
He was numb to Penny's touch, but her reaction gave him hope. He bottled his happiness as best he could, catching the feeling in his throat before it was too late. He never would have initiated something so risky when he was alive. It took death and more than one alternate universe for him to fully understand how he felt. He loved her. Beyond his mind and beyond his heart, he loved her with his soul.
It hurt like Hell.
"There is nothing wrong with you, Penelope. How many times must I repeat myself? You and Leonard aren't meant to be."
"Who am I meant to be with, then?"
"Whom."
"Whom? Who's whom?"
"No. Whom. I was correcting your English."
Penny shoved him away from her. "Ass."
"I'll assume you're getting cold." Sheldon took off his jacket and threw it into Penny's arms, nonchalant. He opened the cooler door. "I've encroached upon your business enough for one day. I'll see you after work."
Penny blinked.
"For my jacket." What he spoke and what he meant were two, completely different things. He said: I'll see you after work for my jacket. What he meant was: You're staying with me. End of discussion. Penny was lucky she was talented enough to understand Sheldonese a little better than before.
"Leave the light on for me, sweetie."
What she meant was: Leave the light on for me, sweetie.
