Chapter Nine: There's No Place Like Home Without You
Sheldon Cooper had been sitting at his desk for eleven minutes, forty eight seconds with his head buried in his hands when his cell phone rang. Uncharacteristically, he flipped it open without checking the caller id (to make sure it wasn't a telemarketer or Howard) and barely whined out, "Hello?"
"Sheldon?" he heard Penny say.
"Who did you think you were calling?" he moaned into the handset.
"Sorry, sweetie," her voice sounded a whole lot more chipper than his.
"How can you be in such a good mood?"
"I just wanted to call and tell you that... I'm leaving for Nebraska today."
"You're," he hissed in a breath in his verbal outburst, "what?"
"I'm going home for a visit," her voice sounded uncertain.
"For how long?"
"Just the weekend." Penny heard Sheldon heave a great sigh and put on his more business-like tone.
"You didn't clear this with me first," he accused.
"I know, I know. I didn't have this planned."
"I'd give you a strike for this if I wasn't so hung over." Sheldon couldn't believe this. She knew it was commonplace to inform your neighbors of your trips ahead of time so they could agree to watch over your place and get your mail. He had informed her that he would like 2 weeks' notice but was willing to have a minimum of five days.
"Sheldon, you are the best."
"I know that," he huffed. He could almost hear her smile through the phone.
"Next time, we'll have a floor meeting, just as stipulated in the floor contract."
"Good bye, Penny," he said just as Raj and Howard walked into his office, "Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum just arrived." He flipped the phone closed.
"Let's get it on," Howard said, pumping his fists at his pelvis. "So, how is our little lady love this morning? You leave her asleep? Was she mad you didn't stay for a little...morning delight?"
"Howard, I have no clue what you are hinting at but I have a feeling I don't want to," Sheldon groaned with his head pounding like a drum in his hands.
"Oh, come," Raj chimed, "you can't leave us hanging, Sheldon! We want the deets!"
"Yeah," Howard seconded, "the where, the how, the why-"
"Definitely the why!" Raj interjected.
"Of what?" Sheldon seriously wasn't following the line of questioning. Even in top mental form, he wasn't sure he could figure out what they could be alluding to.
"Your little Panty Party with Penny."
"Good alliteration," Raj commented.
"Thanks," Howard smiled, sticking his thumbs into his belt, "I've been saving that one."
"There was no Panty Party, you nymphomaniac apes."
"Oh, defensive, I get it. You don't want to share. Fine, fine, I get it." Howard and Raj walked out calmly, pulling the door shut behind them.
"Dude, why did you give up so fast?" Raj questioned.
"Because Leonard is an easier target. Come on," he pulled his little Indian friend along.
That night, Leonard and Sheldon came home to an empty apartment save the key pushed under the door.
"What's this?" Leonard said, more to himself than Sheldon (who he was not speaking to).
"Penny's key," Sheldon said, still not quite picking up that Leonard's anger was at him. In fact, judging from the black eye Wolowitz was sporting, Sheldon had assumed Leonard was angry with him and not he.
"Penny left you her key?"
"Why, yes. She's done it before." Leonard didn't quite no what to say. So, he let his monster do the talking.
"What, do you guys think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't see?"
"I don't suppose you got a doctorate from being stupid and I assumed your glasses prescription was up to date." Leonard wanted to throttle him. He wanted to rip the smug little head off of his body and burn it. The monster wanted blood and, by golly, Leonard was thinking about giving it to him. "Penny's left us her key while she's gone home to Nebraska." Suddenly, Leonard's human side broke out for a moment and he had nothing hateful to say to his social inept friend. He just walked back to his own room and stayed there awhile.
Hours later, robed in red plaid and his white t-shirt, Leonard came padding out of his room to turn the television off. It was so unlike Sheldon to leave it on before he went to sleep. He was surprised to find a rather solemn looking Sheldon on the couch, wrapped in a hideous, could it even be called a blanket?, staring blankly at a television test screen.
"Sheldon," he said slowly, "what's up?"
"Nothing, just couldn't sleep." Leonard leaned back, a little grimace of fear on his face.
"You aren't ill, are you?"
"Not at the moment, why?" Sheldon's eyes never left the pattern playing across the television.
"You miss Penny, don't you?" Sheldon's sternocleidomastoid twitched a little and his masseter muscle bulged as he clinched his jaw.
"No, why would you think that?"
"What's going on, Sheldon?" Leonard asked wearily.
"I'm sorry, please rephrase that last data entry."
"What is going on with you and Penny?" he said, a little more sternly than he would have expected.
"Nothing. We're friends, if I am using the term properly, like you and me." Sheldon's cell phone buzzed briefly and he picked it. He flipped the phone open and obviously read a text message. He shut the phone and laid it back down on the arm of the couch. "Well, good night, Leonard. I'll see you in the morning." Sheldon wrapped himself tighter in the...rag? and entered his bedroom without another word. Leonard, at the urging of the little monster, picked up the phone and opened the last text message received.
"made it to nebraska. C u guys monday ~Penny"
And, suddenly, Leonard's little monster seemed to shrink. He felt a space open inside himself that couldn't be filled with resentment or jealousy. He just looked sadly between the phone and the bedroom door, feeling simultaneously defeated and pathetic, alone and selfish. He shut the phone with a sigh and shuffle off to bed, telling himself it is all for the best.