Paradoxical Sleep

Chapter the Seventh: In Which the Reaction Accelerates

"Penny?"

She opened her eyes to the sight of her father leaning over her, his expression a mixture of concern and confusion. "What time is it?" she muttered, looking out the living room window. The first rays of sunlight had not yet begun to peek into the room.

"It's, uh, about ten to six, and you've got a visitor," he said, obviously a bit uncomfortable. Penny squinted.

"A visitor?" she repeated incredulously, propping herself up on her elbows. "Who the—"

She fell silent, suddenly hearing a very familiar voice telling her mother that no, he would not like coffee, but if she had tea, that would not go unappreciated; that he never drank coffee, except for this one incident involving her daughter that nearly led him to a caffeine addiction. Penny's mouth dropped open. "Oh my Lord," she said, sounding remarkably like him. "Sheldon's in my house."

Her father was still looking at her. "Is this the uh...the crazy one that you've talked about?"

Penny nodded silently, pushing off her covers as she did so. "I should go...talk to..." She lost her words as she drifted into the kitchen. The sight of her mother, slumped down, drinking her coffee across from Sheldon, who was sitting up even straighter than usual, and appeared to be lecturing her on the difference between biology and physics...it was so surreal that she wasn't able to do much except blink for a good few seconds.

Sheldon caught sight of her immediately. "Penny!" he exclaimed, rising. Maybe it was the lack of coffee, the fact that she was living on only a few hours of sleep, that whiskey she'd downed the night before, or just the friggin' weird situation, but she felt as if she was trying to swim through quicksand. Her head hurt.

She clutched her temples, feeling like her brains were about to fall out. "Ugh," she got out before she felt a touch at her side. Her mom was looking up at her over her coffee mug with an expression that didn't exactly help Penny's extreme emotion of wanting-to-punch-her-in-the-face (which she'd been experiencing for oh, about twelve hours or so). Her father was still lingering in the doorway. Which meant that the tall presence behind her was Sheldon, and he was guiding her into a chair. Gently, he helped her to sit down.

Gawd, this day could not get any weirder.

"Penny," he said seriously, craning his neck down at her like a bird. Somewhere in her mind, the comparison was funny, but she didn't smile. "Are you okay?"

She thought about this. Words came back to her ears, as loud as if they were really being said.

"—all that time in California and still just a waitress—"

"—if it had been Penny, she wouldn't have been smart enough—"

"—not even them girls on Jersey Shore as slutty as our Penny—"

He hadn't taken his hand off of her, and if she had been a little less out of it, that would have been cause enough to freak out. He was worried about her, she realized, and something in her heart seemed to give. The numbness faded away, and she suddenly felt, really felt, the deep thankfulness for what he'd done. Sheldon had come to save her again. With that realization, unfortunately, all of the last night's memories flooded back into her brain and she winced. Life had kicked her in the butt yet again, but she mustered up the strength to shake her head. "No. I'm not okay, Sheldon."

Her words were barely louder than a breath, but he seemed to hear her—his Vulcan hearing, she thought fondly. "I see," he said. Anybody else would have thought this an emotionless reaction, but Penny saw the care in his eyes. She knew him too well.

Penny forced a smile onto her face. "We're gonna take a walk," she announced, removing Sheldon's hand from her shoulder and clasping it with her own. Her father reacted visibly. Her mother's face didn't change, and somehow that just made her even angrier.

The air was brisk, and as soon as she escaped from that suffocating house, Penny felt more alive. Sheldon was silently watching her, as if she might break at any second. She knew he was expecting her to talk about it; she knew that she didn't want to, not yet. Not here.

"So, how did you find my house?" she asked, choosing the simplest of the questions. Not "why did you come", not "how do you care about me so much", not "I'm starting to suspect that you're in love with me, but that's a little bit crazy". Okay, the last one was a statement, but it certainly raised enough questions.

"I'm a physicist, Penny," he said in that familiar, insufferable tone, and for the first time since coming back to Nebraska, she genuinely smiled. "All right, I asked Wolowitz."

"How did he—nevermind. I don't want to know. Okay. So you...flew here...to get me...right after you had the dream?"

Sheldon nodded. "Obviously," he replied, but he kept it under his breath and halfway civil. She rolled her eyes, still feeling touched.

"Thank you," Penny said in a small voice. Suddenly, last night didn't seem to matter. What mattered was walking out here with Sheldon, sunrise coating their skin. What mattered was that he came for her.

Oh, she was going to cry. She tried to hold it in, knowing that it would make him uncomfortable, knowing that she would just feel worse afterward, but it was impossible. Within a minute, she was not only sobbing, but she had her face buried in that butt-ugly jacket of his, and his arms were almost kind of around her, and it was a lot closer to perfect than anything with any guy she'd ever been with.

It's time to face the music, she thought with surprising clarity, considering all of her other thoughts that day had been a jumble. She loved him. She was in love with him. It wasn't like she hadn't seen this coming, but she hadn't expected to have to face it so soon. She'd expected to be thrown into some kind of depression, but instead she felt this incredible peace. It was like that moment any actor knew well, after searching for the character, when they just found it and became it. It clicked into place.

Eventually, Penny ran out of tears. She stood up, stopped leaning on him, and couldn't blame him for looking relieved. She reached up and wiped her eyes; her hand came away with mascara on it. She'd forgotten to take her makeup off last night. Oh well. He'd seen her look worse, and it wasn't like he cared anyway. She remembered his expression when she'd worn the DC shirt and smiled to herself. Maybe he did care a bit, but he definitely wasn't some shallow guy who wouldn't like her when she had makeup all over her face.

"So," she said, when she was sure that she wouldn't start crying again. "What was the rest of the plan?"

Sheldon looked taken aback.

"For coming here, I mean. How were you going to leave?"

He relaxed slightly. "We," he said, with emphasis, "are going to return by train. There is a beautifully reproduced overnight dinner train that will take us as far as Los Angeles, and we may take a bus to Pasadena from there."

"How are we getting to the station?"

"I managed to cajole a taxi driver to take me out 'into the country', presumably we could do the same to return to the city."

"Or we could steal the truck," Penny said, grinning. His expression was shocked. "I was joking, Sheldon."

"Oh."

"You really did think of everything, didn't you?"

"It's kind of my job," he replied, smirking. She giggled.

He was smiling, too. It looked good on him. She could get used to this new, easy interaction, although she kind of wished that they could be back in California. She didn't want to have to face her family again, especially her mom. "When were you planning on us leaving?"

Sheldon frowned. "My original plan, which I conceived on the flight, involved us leaving immediately, as I did not know if you were in physical danger. As you do not seem to be, I suppose I must amend my plan to account for anything else you need. However, I would much prefer if we could leave as soon as possible."

"Could we leave tomorrow?" she asked, almost regretting the words as they left her mouth. His eyes darkened, but he nodded.

Penny looked around. The sun had risen completely, and she wanted to stay out there forever. Still, she'd done enough running lately. "We should head back," she said softly, and he followed her.

Sheldon despised change, in general. Any deviation from his routine was unwelcome, and yet recently he'd been willingly subjecting himself to change on a regular basis. He had allowed Penny to disrupt his life to such a great extent that he was here in Nebraska instead of California. Yet he could not regret his actions, and not only because they were necessary. He was always more content in her presence. It was troubling, but true nonetheless. He could ignore the facts no longer.

He looked at her, as they sat with her mother and father at lunch and attempted to pretend that everything was "okay". They were courteous enough, but Sheldon was perceptive enough to catch the coldness behind her mother's words. Her father was a bit more of an enigma, but he did not seem openly hostile.

Penny was doing a remarkable job of appearing to be happy, and he thought that even a year ago he probably would have believed her. Perhaps her career choice was not so misinformed after all. Even though her smile was false, her beauty was unmistakable. He had to catch his breath between bites of his sandwich (he tried to suppress the voice in his mind telling him that Monday was not Sandwich Day).

Sheldon was a stubborn man, but he was also a great scientist. He knew that one of his hypotheses, namely "I am above romantic love and will never fall into its trap", had been firmly disproven. The evidence was indisputable. He could only find himself arguing the other side. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her and to take her away from whatever hurt she had found here.

That afternoon, he and Penny passed the time reading. He found it difficult to concentrate, however, having the most peculiar sense of anticipation. At exactly 2:03, there was a knock at the door. Penny's mother answered it, and ushered the guest into the living room.

It was a man; tall, average build, blond, a scruffy beard. His skin was pale, his eyes were rather wild. "Dave," Penny said quietly. The name immediately connected with a memory—Sheldon remembered Penny mentioning her brother, Dave. He had been incarcerated, but evidently was no longer.

"Hey," Dave said, in a meandering tone. "Who're you?"

At Penny's prompting, Sheldon shook her brother's hand, trying to conceal his shudder of distaste. "I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper."

Dave nodded, but his eyes were on his sister. Sheldon resisted the urge to reach for his Purell, remembering Penny's lecture on the rudeness of "that kind of behavior". After what he thought was an appropriate amount of time, he excused himself. Once safely inside the bathroom, he scrubbed his hands vigorously. Penny's brother had looked like his last shower had taken place before Sheldon had received his first doctorate, and to be honest, that disgusted him. There must have been some value in the man, he reflected, for her expression had been content, happy even.

He paused. Dave might have been the reason they were staying another night. Yes, that seemed rational. Additionally, that would explain the trip to this nightmarish land in the first place—Penny had her own rationale for desiring to see her brother. He could not identify with these emotions, but he understood the concept well enough.

Sheldon dried his hands on the towel. He longed to discover why Penny had been in the Darklands (as he called them in his mind), and why she had cried that morning. He was, however, familiar enough with social protocol's dictates to understand that he should wait for her to bring it up, as frustrating as that was.

The rest of their afternoon was spent talking to Dave, or, in Sheldon's case, doing his best not to say anything. Every time that Sheldon began to speak, Dave looked confused and somewhat angry, so Sheldon found it best to simply occupy his mind with other matters while Penny and her brother conversed. He found some notepaper and began to write some simple equations, more a distraction than anything relevant. He kept a figurative ear open to their conversation, but some of it seemed to be coded.

For example, when he began to write, Dave took notice of him again, and said to Penny in what seemed to be a confidential tone, "So are you?"

He heard the sharp intake of her breath. "No, no. Well. Not really, you know? It's...complicated."

"What kind of complicated?"

"High school complicated. Only somehow it's worse, I think."

"Hoo, boy."

Sheldon could make neither heads nor tails of this conversation, and decided to assume, until further evidence presented itself, that somebody (most likely Penny's father) had taught them a special cornhusker code, for when outsiders were present. He was not offended at the use, although he had a hunch that they were talking about him.

When the discussion was not coded, it was uninteresting. Dave had manoeuvred a complex appeal, pretended to "see the light", and sold out several of his comrades; as a result, he stood before them today a free man. Sheldon supposed that was somewhat impressive, but the man's swaggering pride over his release was, quite frankly, uncalled-for.

At 4:58, Penny said, "I'll be back, you guys. There's something I have to do."

"Well, of course you'll be back. The only reason you wouldn't return is if you were abandoning me. From what I have seen of your character, I would highly doubt that you would do that," he replied.

She put a hand on his shoulder. He expected to tense, but instead his muscles relaxed as soon as her touch graced the fabric of his T-shirt. "Thanks, honey!"

At 6:15, she returned with a bulging bag of takeout. "There's another one in the car," she grunted. Sheldon looked at Dave, who definitely possessed superior musculature, but he made no move to volunteer. The physicist retrieved the bag and took it to Penny.

"This is Thai food," he stated rather obviously.

She grinned. "Yeah, I know. I figured if I dragged you out to Nebraska—"

"You didn't drag me," he interjected quietly.

"—and made you stay another night and screwed up your whole routine, the least I could do was to bring you a little bit of California. Well, a little bit of Thailand, if you wanna be technical." Penny paused, his earlier statement finally receiving her full attention. "What did you mean, a second ago?"

"Of course you didn't drag me. I made the decision of my own free will, because I...I care about you deeply, Penny," he said, finding it easier to breathe after he spoke than before.

Sheldon watched as a happy expression spread across her face. It started in her eyes, unusual because Penny normally smiled first and appeared truly happy later, perhaps because she invoked the facial feedback effect to improve her mood. If so, this was a true smile with its origins in her emotions. A number of unusual sensations began to occur to him physiologically, and he resolved to begin journalling this reaction when he had a moment alone.

"I care about you deeply, too, Sheldon."

The sensations increased tenfold.

Before going to bed that night (he was to sleep on the couch, but thankfully it was long enough for his frame), Sheldon turned to Penny and said in a low tone, "I have a place I want to take you tonight."

Dave, standing nearby, snickered and walked away.

Penny smiled. "More innuendo, Sheldon."

"I apologize. Would you try your best to clear your mind before sleeping, so that you will join my dream?"

She hesitated. "Wouldn't it be easier if I just pictured the place, too?"

Her understanding really had improved; he wondered if she had read the newest revision to the papers. "Generally, yes, but as you have not been to this place before, it might cause a loss of stability in the dream."

"We haven't tried that before," she mused.

"And we are not going to try it tonight. Your mind has become exhausted, and I do not want to strain it further by forcing it to create a place you've never seen."

A strange expression crossed her face. "You realize that you're putting my needs over the 'collective good'? Over your research? Over science?"

Sheldon pursed his lips. "Good night, Penny."

As she walked away, he heard her humming "Goodnight My Someone", and hid a smile.

Sheldon had worried that, as his usual routine had been disrupted, he would find it difficult to sleep, but he slipped off to a peaceful slumber immediately, and found himself where he'd hoped to be: Würzburg. He was standing before the Frankoniabrunnen fountain. He walked a circle around it, observing his surroundings—as usual, the dream world was deserted.

"Sheldon?"

Ah, she had arrived sooner than he had anticipated. A moment after he heard her voice, she appeared in his visual field. Penny looked stunning in a dark blue sundress, her hair up to reveal her lovely neck. He swallowed, remembering suddenly that he was the one who had "dressed her".

All of this was lost on her. She was looking at the fountain. "Where are we?"

"Würzburg."

"Germany?"

"Yeah."

"It's beautiful," she murmured.

"It was a gift to a prince of Bavaria," he said.

"You taught here, right?" Penny asked.

"Well, not here, but I did teach in Germany, yes."

She sat on the edge of the fountain and patted the space next to her. Sheldon sat dutifully. "Why don't you tell me about that? About your childhood and everything, I mean."

"All righty..."

So he told her everything, from his family to the other children who were almost his friends, once upon a time. His studies and his failures, his professors and his students. Eventually, his stories wore out, and she picked up where he left off, telling him about her dozen elementary school best friends, her first theatre class, the first time she realized that she could use her looks to get what she wanted. It was in that way that they occupied the night, and Sheldon thought later that it was, perhaps, his favorite dream of all.

End Notes: I'm sorry that Penny's mom is so horrible. I feel like she would have to be, at the very least, difficult to please as far as Penny's concerned. The only train I could find that goes from Omaha to California is the California Zephyr, which isn't what they rode. They're going to ride a fictional train because they live in a fictional universe that is just that much better than our own. If Monday is not Sandwich Day, what is it? Don't ask me. The next chapter is the last, by the way, and the epilogue shall be posted with it. "Goodnight My Someone" is from The Music Man.

Note to Anon13: I will certainly write more Sheldon/Penny, but I rarely do multi-chapters and never do sequels. Still, we'll see! I will have a wrap-up of sorts in the epilogue just to tie up loose ends. Thank you for your continued support!