A/N: Thanks again everyone for the helpful and encouraging reviews! I am so glad others like this story.

I do not own the characters of the Big Bang Theory. Leanne, however, is entirely my own invention.

As Sheldon entered the ballroom with Penny on his arm he felt confused momentarily. He had always hated the social gatherings that accompanied his professional life. Faculty parties were always a bit of a chore for him and when Dr. Gablehauser first came to the university he had refused to attend such gatherings but had to suck up his pride in attempts to gain funding from donors. He despised the process.

But tonight, this reception was fully in his honor. He hadn't really understood that until now. The faces in the crowd turned as he walked in. People held their hands out in congratulations and he didn't even care how many germs he was going to contract tonight. He reasoned that Penny was going to be hugging so many people as she always does, so he would contract such microorganisms through his contact with her anyhow. He loathed the idea of getting sick from an activity he loved so much, but that was something he intellectually knew was a short coming in his personality and he wanted to counteract it.

Raj, Howard, Amy and Bernadette were seated with Leanne and her Stockholm friend with Leonard's empty seat between them. Their table was about twenty feet from where Sheldon and Penny sat. They were seated at the head of the room, just below the stage area where the band was set. The stage was still curtained off so it wasn't until everyone was seated and the curtain opened that Sheldon noticed Leonard sitting in the direct center of the arrangement.

Dr. Gablehauser walked to the microphone set center stage and welcomed everyone to the reception.

"Thank you ladies and gentleman for coming here to Dr. Cooper's presentation this afternoon and to our reception tonight." He greeted. "I would like to thank our hosts for the evening, and offer my gratitude to Dr. Mathews and his wife, loaned to us tonight from MIT and Dr. Camden and his wife visiting from Oxford." He pointed them out at the head table next to Sheldon and Penny. He continued introducing various other significant researchers in the crowd and as he did so Penny allowed her mind to wander.

Just two days ago she had never intended to have any sort of romantic attachment to Sheldon. He was a whack-a-doodle and condescending and meticulous. Sure, she had come to appreciate all those aspects of his personality but the change in her affections seemed so drastic. Just like Raj and Amy, all of this seemed to come from nowhere. This was their third night in Las Vegas and she felt like her world changed as drastically as all those couples who were randomly eloping all over the city.

He was so sweet earlier in the evening. He got her the dress, and that meant a lot to her. But as she reexamined, for about the fiftieth time in an hour, how he held her during their make out session earlier, she saw just how that gentleness he has always exhibited could translate to the bedroom. Sure, she was lit on fire by every touch of his skin. Each kiss he laid on her neck, that tiny nibble he took on her bottom lip, it all made her feel like it was her first time too. She hadn't felt this in forever. That anticipation and expectation and lack of a sense of direction when in his embrace was just like that she felt her first time with a boy in high school. She really hadn't let herself digest it all yet.

She was so busy thinking about the changes in her group (Raj with Amy, Leonard and a new girl!) that she hadn't sat alone and tried to study this new depth of affection or surge of jealousy and possessiveness she felt around the brilliant woman. She almost let herself get mad again just then, but decided she did have a good deal of evidence Sheldon was into her. Like Amy pointed out, he must really like her if he could conceive of spending that much on a dress without a second thought.

She tuned back into Dr. Gablehauser's speech just in time to hear him announce that Leonard was going to perform a special piece he wrote for the night with the help of Howard and Raj. The lights in the room dimmed perceptibly. A small light focused on Leonard on stage and many flickered about the dance floor. Images of numbers and letters of an equation fluttered across the floor. Leonard's arms were moving furiously at first, softening in tone and then picking up in beats interspersed. She realized that Leonard wrote the piece in tune with the equation Sheldon used to prove his theory. It was all there, it had its own voice. She was shocked that she could understand the relationship between the math and the music. They were always one in the same… 'this must be how the guys see the world' She thought. 'Sheldon must observe everything in its most minute.' The piece was ethereally lovely and she was beyond in love with all four of her guys at that moment.

When the piece ended, Leonard stood and led the crowd in yet another ovation towards Sheldon. Even his ego was overwhelmed by the attention. It was too much. He was a creature of habit and order and yet there he was on a Monday night in the middle of a large crowd, having made the most solid step to fame in his career and he had Penny. He was at a loss for how to respond other than to look to her for guidance. She rose, tugging him to stand and whispered directions for him to wave to everyone "do it small and with a real smile. No not that big!" he needed her to teach him these things.

Dinner was served, followed by an invitation for dancing on the floor. First, the band played a classic Viennese waltz. Sheldon wanted to ask Penny to dance but was unsure if she was sufficiently schooled in this particular style. So, he waited until another, more straightforward, English waltz before asking her to join him. In the back of his mind, he knew that Penny was the type of woman who would expect these types of social interactions with him. He was dreading the fact that most opportunities to dance with her would be to her contemporary tastes in which he was not educated. At least tonight he could hold her in his arms in public without blushing and without the potential to rip off her dress. After all, his mother and meemaw raised him to be a gentleman.

Penny was on top of her own little planet as Sheldon expertly swooped her around the ballroom. She could feel the tug of her mouth as it reach the tops of her cheeks and adored watching her happy eyes reflect in Sheldon's. He was, not surprisingly, a master at the dance. He had always moved with a grace about him and his cotillion training was certainly a thorough education in the art. She had a mental image of his mother pushing him off to his dance lessons and made a mental note to mention a large thank you to her during their next scheduled chat. Thinking of that she gave a mental frown. How was she going to handle his mother? 'Eh, Sheldon's a genius, he can worry about that one.'

They had been dancing through three full rounds until Leonard asked to cut in. She was a little disappointed to be cut off from Sheldon but she had missed Leonard all day. He spent so much time with his new girl that she hadn't gotten to thank him for his little revelation the day before. He took her in his arms but as Mary Cooper might say, they were saving room for Jesus between them.

As they danced off in the other direction, Sheldon spotted Leanne at the edge of the floor and offered his hand. He wanted to thank for her pushing him to his own emotional revelation and he wanted to ask for more help.

Leonard and Penny were discussing how incredibly well Sheldon's presentation was received. He informed her that he had gotten a few vague assurances that Sheldon's work was going to be considered this year in Stockholm. He explained the nomination process and that he was probably going to have to work to find someone who would be able to make such a recommendation, but both were delighted that their friend might actually get to his goal. Right as Penny was about to throw her arms in thanks to God for all the delights in the world, she spotted Sheldon dancing out of the corner of her eye. He had that brilliant woman in his arms.

From the perspective of their seats, Amy and Howard could see Penny's face switch from delight to rage instantaneously. They followed her gaze and could see Sheldon's back as he danced with someone, they couldn't be sure who. But that hardly mattered. Penny was storming off toward the bar on the far end of the room, leaving a confused Leonard in the middle of the floor. They saw Leonard about to move after her but he was caught off in a conversation with a shorter, balding man with curious glasses.

Taking up the reigns as best friend, Amy decided to cut across the crowd on the floor and go after Penny. It was not unusual for Penny to storm off from Sheldon. He often did things to her, pulled pranks, that infuriated her and had her to running back to her apartment to plot revenge. But this time, even socially-inept Amy could identify, was different. As she weaved between couples caught in the music, Amy bumped into Sheldon who just finished his dance with Leanne and delivered her into the arms of one of her other colleagues.

"Amy, you look lovely this evening. Have you seen Penny?" Sheldon asked innocently and unaware.

"She stormed off toward the bar. I would be remiss in my duties as her bestie to allow her to spoil the evening with an overconsumption of alcohol." Amy stated plainly.

Sheldon followed Amy's lead through the crowd. Once they reached the other side of the floor and could get a good view of the area around them they both stopped. Penny was about thirty feet away, sitting on a barstool. Even in the dim lighting Sheldon could make out that look on Penny's face. She was leaning in to the bartender, flipping up her hair and putting on a sexy pout. Sheldon felt his heart drop through his torso like he was riding Tower of Terror at Disney Land.

'What if this is all casual for her? It would not be the first time Penny had carnal interactions without commitment or sentimentality.' Sheldon didn't even want to continue to speculate. He wanted answers. He was about to push past Amy and see what Penny's intentions were toward the bartender and toward himself but she abruptly got up and left the ballroom before he could move Amy out of the way.

Amy watched on as her friend's form lengthened in the distance and as Sheldon's pursuit of her was halted by Leonard and a short man who cut into him with conversation. He would have ignored them then, he would have forgotten his recent gains in societal proprieties but he couldn't once he heard Leonard's introduction of the bald man. "Sheldon, this is Dr. Gamble. He wants to talk to you about a new department at CERN."

Sheldon's default programing, his inner desire for some other career challenge to come his way now that he accomplished one goal, began to override his newer desire for Penny. He decided to stay, face still set in jealousy, as he opened himself up to the possibility of entering into an order of elites.

-T—B—B—T-

Amy made her way back to the table where a worried Howard was anxiously talking to Raj about what he had witnessed. As soon as she was within earshot, Bernadette demanded to know what was going on. The look on Amy's face almost made them worry that someone just keeled over died on the other side dance floor but they all knew that the something that was terribly wrong was with their friends.

Sheldon and Penny had become the center stage of their group, the two people everything revolved around. No one ever explicitly pointed it out before but everyone knew that with his crazy demands and authoritative attitude and her nurturing and link to the more normal social sphere of the world, the health of the group of friends rested on their shoulders.

Bernadette listened to Amy's confused relay of what she witnessed. It was fairly simplistic; "Penny got mad, so I went after her when Leonard couldn't. Sheldon was with me when I found her. She was hitting on the bartender." Bernadette's temper was waffling between rage, fury, troubled and despair. She wondered just how much everyone else had picked up on in the last couple days. Yes, she saw that everyone had a reaction to Sheldon and Penny as they got into the elevator but did they have any idea of just how Penny felt about Sheldon?

Before they went to bed last night, Howard insisted that Bernadette relay to him whatever she had been so fixated on texting during Amy's makeover. She didn't want to break confidence but he did have a point, "People expect a married couple to share secrets." She had felt a ball of tension loosen once she let it out to him, a ball that was now rapidly reforming. Howard looked to her for guidance. He wanted to continue his little trust circle that he formed with Bernie but once she read his silent plea and nodded in permission, Howard was overwhelmed with relief. He put one arm around Raj and one around Amy to pull them in close enough for a whisper.

"There is obviously something romantic going on between those two. I think we need to figure out how far its running." Howard began to lead the subset group of four out to the hall where they didn't have to struggle to hear over the music.

Amy couldn't contain herself. Bernadette had just told her about all the things Penny said when she was drunk two night ago. At first everyone, including Raj, thought she would be pissed that some of this had started up when she was still with him, but she was too dedicated to the cause. She loved Penny and she still felt Sheldon was a kindred spirit.

"I have a proposal. Let's discuss everything we can remember about their relationship together tonight and by breakfast tomorrow we meet up and come up with a plan of action." Amy exclaimed as they piled into the elevator.

"So we are going to do this? Try to play with your friends lives to help Sheldon get Peppermint Patty to do a crossover?" Howard still hadn't wrapped his mind around it all.

"More like we are helping Penny tame Flash." Raj corrected.

"Both of you knock it off. We need to start doing something about this." Bernadette scolded.

"Ok." Amy stepped in to mediate between Bernadette's real concerns and the guy's proclivity to degenerate into comic book talk. "Let's make a mission out of this. I suggest we call ourselves the Shenny Squad."

Raj looked at her. "Like the A-team?" Both girls sighed.

"Yes, Raj. Like the A-team."

A/N: wanted toacknowledge that Ichanged 'Invisible College' (a borrowed concet) to CERN. It will play in later.