"I'm baaaack.."

"I still don't know why you left."

Back to the game, and with a longer chapter than usual I might add. A coincidence, but a nice one at that. University starts next week, and it may or may not affect updates. Anyway, here you go.

The Shiksa Conclusion

13 hours later, Huntington hospital:

Howard, Rick and Penny were waiting in the hall for the surgery to be over. Howard and Rick were talking about whatever to pass the time, while Penny sat a bit further away from them, silent. Leonard had stepped out for a bit. As Howard saw Leonard make his way back to them, he asked him: "Did you reach Missy or his mom?"

"Her mom said that Sheldon's other sister is in some kind of a trouble right now, so she can't drive here, but she told me to call as soon as we know something. I tried calling Missy, but she didn't reply."

Leonard adjusted his glasses for lack of something better to do. He glanced at Penny, who was trying to stare a hole into the wall in front of her. Her knuckles were white merely out of her squeezing the chair on which she was sitting. Leonard realized that he hadn't really looked at her in quite a while. Stared yes, oogled even, but not just looked at her like a person looks at another when he wants to find out what the other is thinking. Her eyes were puffy, the make up she'd put on for her evening out with Sheldon why? Why would Sheldon take her out? had worn out and was currently making its way down her cheeks, making her look a bit scary. The contrast between her dark make up and her normally tanned complexion that had turned very pale was quite a sight. Despite their seemingly relaxed conversation, Howard's expression was completely blank, as nothing like this had ever happened to him. Rick on the other hand was clearly uncomfortable. He wasn't Sheldon's friend nor did he belong to their group of friends. Also, with the added guilt of him being responsible for Sheldon's hospitalization to begin with, he was edgy, tapping his feet and hands on whatever he got his hands on. His ADD-like behavior was the complete opposite of Penny's. Leonard would've expected her to be shocked or scared, but her expression was that of pure concentration. She cries often, but she is strong in situations like this, he thought. Her eyes were moving as if reading something, and Leonard realized her lips were moving as well. In order to find out what she was saying, he approached her quietly, careful not to disturb her, and pretended to be listening to Rick and Howard's conversation. He squinted his eyes and tried to pick up on her words. He noticed that on her lap she had an item that resembled a framed picture, but Leonard couldn't see if it had an actual photo on it.

His train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the same male doctor to whom they had talked earlier. They all got up to talk to him. After a permission from Penny, he told all of them that the surgery had been a success, but there was no telling whether complications would follow, so Sheldon was going to be kept in the hospital for the next few days. The doctor apologized for only informing them after a few hours after the surgery, but on the good side, now you get to visit him right away. In relation to questions about visitors, the doctor allowed only one person to go see Sheldon. He left them to decide as he had other errands to run.

As they watched the white-clad man walk away from them, they turned to face each other. Rick cleared his throat and was the first one to speak. "So... which 1 shood g0?"

"Leonard, I think. He's his roommate", Howard suggested, as he definitely didn't want to go in, in case Sheldon still had blood on him. He'd had enough of public humiliation for this set of 24 hours.

Leonard grimaced. He wanted to see Sheldon to make sure he was alright, but now that the moment was here, he only felt like yelling at him. Because he'd made him worry. Because even despite his constant x-rays, Sheldon hadn't been able to see this coming, no matter how omniscient he made himself out to be. Because he took Penny out and kissed her Why/Why/Why? in front of everyone, including her boyfriend...Rick. Leonard sighed. Why was this so complicated? He missed the times when even at the times his roommate was being his most obnoxious self, Leonard could always simply take him to the comic book store and everything was well again. Lately, he couldn't shake the feeling that Sheldon was hiding something from him, and for a man constitutionally incapable of keeping secrets, it was odd. I'm getting a headache, he thought and covered his face with his right hand. "I don't think I can deal with him right now", he managed to say before excusing himself to find water with which to down pain killers.

The remaining trio glanced at each other. Penny was now holding or more like hugging the frame. After a moment's silence, Howard took a step forward to uncharacteristically gently push Penny forward. "Penny, you go."

Penny swallowed and coughed a bit. "What?"

"Rick doesn't know him, and I hate him. You're our only option." Howard gave her a small nudge. His voice was incredibly soft. "Go."

Penny kept her eyes on both of them as she turned to the right direction. She smiled, hesitating, just about to cry as she whispered: "I'll tell him you said 'hi'." She disappeared behind the corner.

Rick and Howard stared after her. Without turning, Rick asked him: "You don't really hate him, do you?"

Howard gave him an amused side glance. "No, I suppose I don't. But she needs to see him more badly than I do."

Rick curled his lips a bit before he continued. "Are you sure you should be telling her boyfriend that?" As the situation had grown serious, he'd dropped the slang.

"Indeed, I shouldn't be telling her boyfriend anything of the sort." Howard crossed his hands behind his back and stretched his arms and as a result, leaning forward with a pleased look on his face.

Rick stood up straight, surprised. "She told you?"

"No, but we have means of finding this stuff out." Howard circled him. "She means well, but the plan isn't exactly well-thought-out. Not Sheldon's style at all."

Rick attempted to step back in order to stop Howard. "What do you want?"

Howard pretended not to hear him. He was living his big villain-moment. "Brute as it was, the plan could've worked. That is, before Sheldon's interjection."

"The date and the big kiss? According to what Penny's told me, those will be easily explained by his inept social skills. He can just go I saw it on Youtube or something."

"Leonard may not be a good scientist, but he's not an idiot either. Your plan is flawed and you need to accept that."

"Then what do you suggest in return?

Before Howard could answer, they heard a loud yell.

"Shut up!"

Not quite meanwhile in East Texas, more specifically outside Missy's apartment:

Missy, unaware of her brother's operation, got out of the cab and took the stairs to the second floor of her building. As she approached her door, she saw that there was a figure sleeping on her welcome carpet. Initially, she thought it was one of the hobos about to steal the carpet once again, but soon she recognized a familiar figure before her. She snickered, and touched the man's forehead with the edge of her heel.

Raj stirred, wondering a second where he was and then stood up, alarmed. He came face to face with Missy's playful expression. She reached out to detach one of the luggage tags Raj had had put on him at the airport, and which were still hanging from his curly hair. Then she simply put her hand on her left hip, and stood there, expectantly. She was smiling, wonderful as she was. Raj swallowed. "M-Missy." He cleared his throat to sound more convincing, but he had no time to say anything else as Missy wrapped her arms around him. There was but an inch of room between them. Until that moment he'd been scared of...everything really. Right then and there, however, Raj was sure. He leaned in to kiss Missy. She first playfully resisted him, but just as he thought he'd made a mistake, she kissed him long and hard.

Back at the hospital, 1 second after we last saw Penny:

Inside Sheldon's hospital room, Penny was spared the usual hospital routine of having to guess whether the loved one she was going to visit was dead or just sleeping, as she was greeted by Sheldon's alert eyes. She nearly dropped the frame in surprise. "Sheldon! You're okay!"

"I quite doubt that. The doctors here are largely incompetent, and they haven't given me access to the necessary data for me to evaluate-" Sheldon's annoyed rant was interrupted by Penny running up to him and wrapping her arms around him. She placed the frame on his night stand so as not to break it by accident.

Sheldon, squeezed tightly by the blond girl, found himself in an unforeseen but somehow familiar situation. Normally he avoided being confined like this because he never quite knew what to do in these situations. But was this that bad? He assessed the situation at hand. His face was pressed on the area between Penny's neck and chest, and he could hear her heartbeat. She was radiating warmth. As a social situation, this is most definitely a hug, so I should put my hands on her back to reciprocate, he thought as he did so. As they'd embraced for quite a while, Sheldon found himself thinking This is actually quite nice. Regardless, his arms were getting tired, so he tried to find something with which to support his elbows, and was relieved when he found a piece of fabric to hang his hands from. Unfortunately the piece of fabric happened to be Penny's bra, which caused her to stir. "What are you doing?" she asked, a bit weirded-out.

"Nothing?" Sheldon had come to learn that when in doubt, it was best to say meaningless phrases signaling a lack of knowledge in order to avoid social misunderstandings. He celebrated in his mind as he saw Penny nod, implying that he'd avoided disaster again. Then again, what had the impending disaster been? Oh, right, women find men touching their bras- and such behavior in general- inappropriate. Nice save.

"I brought your lucky charm", Penny said as she moved a bit away from him to sit comfortably on his bed and handed Sheldon the frame.

Sheldon raised his eyebrow questioningly (in a very Spock-like manner) and accepted the frame. Penny felt a warm wave inside her as she saw Sheldon's face light up. "Oh."

"I figured that the closest thing you would have for a lucky charm would be this." Penny's voice was soft, and she avoided his gaze. He raised the frame to admire once again the napkin Penny had given him. He noticed that a piece of white paper had been taped to the corner of the container Sheldon had fashioned himself for his greatest treasure. He read the line out loud: "jIH SaQ Daq joH'a' tlhej wIj ghogh, je ghaH answers jIH pa' vo' Daj le' HuD." He turned his gaze to Penny, who was fighting back tears, but smiling all the same. "I cry to the LORD with my voice, and he answers me out of his holy hill. Psalm 3:4? What is this?"

"I know you're not really a Christian like your family, but you're still one of God's special little people, and I'm sure he doesn't mind. Besides, it's in Klingon, so that whatever you believe or don't believe in are represented also", Penny tried to explain, but knew she wasn't making a whole lot of sense to him. She saw him look at her with his mouth hanging open, but she wasn't sure why because usually if he didn't understand something he just asked for further explanation.

Sheldon was, for the second time in the time he'd got to know Penny, speechless. She understood. His life was a never-ending contradiction between his career as a scientist and his upbringing as a Christian. He didn't quite know if he believed in all that, but if he were to pray, it would be in Klingon. He had no means of expressing his feelings, so he just stayed quiet.

After a moment of comfortable silence, Sheldon remembered. "Could you ask Rick to come see me, I need to thank him for punching my brains out."

"What? Why?"

"If it wasn't for him, the incompetence of this hospital's staff in performing my x-rays and such would have gone unnoticed and the tumor may have proceeded to a terminal condition before it was detected. However it pains me (literally) to say it, but I owe him my life."

Penny tilted her head to her side. "Okay, that makes sense. I'll tell him to come by later, but right now I'm the only person that can see you."

Sheldon nodded, and changed the subject, smiling oddly. "Is it too early to inquire if our date went fine in your opinion?"

"What?"

"It wasn't an operation induced hallucination, was it? That did happen, right?"

"No no, yes it happened. I'm just surprised by the question."

"Why? Isn't the evaluation of the success of the date an important part of the convention of dating?"

"I guess, but this is different." Penny got up and started circling the room quite similarly to Rick.

"How so? We went to a restaurant without other people that we know, we had dinner after which we kissed. If there hadn't been the Rick-moving-in-part in the middle of the last two, I would say our date was quite a traditional take on courtship."

Penny didn't understand where Sheldon was getting at. He wasn't interested in dating, and yet he was the one insisting that it had been a real date...and yes, it was also him who had kissed her. Why?

"Why did you kiss me? We had this whole plan with Rick to go through. Don't you think Leonard is going to be a little suspicious if you're the one kissing me instead of Rick?"

Sheldon averted her gaze. "I had compelling reasons for what I did."

Penny stood with her arms akimbo. Her tone was demanding and she looked anxious. "Let's hear them then, shall we?"

Sheldon stared back, then, quite uncharacteristically, gave up. "Alright, I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? I thought you had knowledge of the entire universe and everything it contains."

Sheldon twisted his lips in annoyance. Being reminded of his own limits was always hard for him. "I only remember that I had quite many reasons to k—do it. Right now, however, the only one I remember is that you invited me to do it."

"I did what?"

"Your pupils were dilated all through the evening. Since I assume you're not doing drugs, I took it as a signal of sexual attraction." Sheldon had tilted his head to the side and he observed her confusion calmly.

"I can't help the way my eyes are, but I most definitely was not..." Penny's voice trailed away. Sheldon's expression irked her. He was acting like it would be completely normal for her to be into him. Nobody—I mean nobody—would think... Suddenly she got the same kind of an awful feeling she used to get as a teenager. Her head kept swarming with negative thoughts. Penny tried to redirect her focus to Sheldon, who was waiting for her to finish her sentence, but she couldn't shake the anxious feeling. She held her head with her hands just to stop herself from crying or screaming.

Her posture, to any other observer, would have served as a warning sign. To the man struggling to read even the most obvious expressions of feelings, however, her silence meant that she probably was searching for the right words, her English being what it was. "Don't worry, I will assist you. You most definitely were not- signaling sexual attraction towards me? If that's what you're trying to say, can I interest you in some brochures that might help you with your drug problem?"

"Sheldon. Stop talking right now."

"Drug-related problems are quite common, so there's hardly any-"

"Shut up, shut up and shut up!" Sheldon clammed up and observed Penny to get further instructions on what to do. Based on the times they had previously fought, Penny having her hands up, whether on her head or simply crossed on her chest, was generally a bad sign. Her expression was a one Sheldon had never seen before, and for a man of routine and rituals, this was worry some. Just a moment ago everything had been fine. If she truly is abusing narcotics, this might be withdrawal, he considered for a while before dismissing it as unlikely. Too sudden, as she was fine in the beginning of this conversation. As her menstrual cycle would not be responsible for odd behavior for another week, low blood sugar was the more likely option. He looked around in vain to find something edible. As he wasn't supposed to move about before he would be released, Sheldon would just have to get Penny to nourish herself. "Penny, could you go get me something to eat? I'll pay you back. And get yourself something as well."

Penny eyed him for a while and got up. "Fine. I'll be back soon."

Sheldon moved his slender hand a bit to his right instead of actually waving and watched her close the door behind her. Without thinking, he raised his left index finger to his lips, and smiled. Then he caught himself and forced his expression back to normal.