Author's Note: Please be assured that I've been chastising myself for leaving you all with the cliffhanger from the last chapter for over a month! I should be spanked…by Sheldon! ;-) Warning: More angst ahead. We'll probably be dealing with this for a few chapters.

DISCLAIMER: See chapter 1. Lather, rinse, repeat.


Knock, knock, knock.

Penny!

Knock, knock, knock.

Penny!

Knock, knock, knock.

Penny!

Penny opened the door a crack. She didn't have to look to know who was on the other side of the door.

"Sheldon. I'm sorry, but I can't help you with Fun With Flags today. Penny put a slight emphasis on Fun With Flags and jerked her head twice, quickly, toward the interior of the room.

"Penny!" Sheldon tried to push past her, but Penny wouldn't budge. "Penny, I don't care about Fun With Flags right now. I've made a terrible error and I MUST speak to you."

"Ssshhhhh!" Penny was emphatically jerking her head and signaling for Sheldon to stop talking. She leaned out the door and whispered as quietly as she could, "Amy's inside, Sheldon! I can't talk with you right now. Just go back to your place. I'll call you as soon as I can!"

Sheldon's shoulders slumped in obvious relief, "Oh thank you Jesus! I've been texting and e-mailing and Skyping her all morning with no response. I even tried calling her phone! I couldn't reach her." Then his eyes went wide in horror. "What did she tell you?" he breathed.

"Enough. Now go back home before she hears you. Try not to worry, I think this is fixable. But Amy cannot find out about… Fun With Flags. You know that!"

Sheldon's face fell. He desperately needed to discuss the previous night's debacle with Penny. He'd made the decision to put an immediate stop to this ridiculous experiment, but, and it shocked him somewhat to realize this, he didn't want to lose Amy. He needed Penny's help to see if there was any hope to salvage something out of the mess he'd made of his relationship. He didn't think a reboot would work this time.

Penny gently closed the door and turned around to face the two women sitting on her couch. Bernadette had a consoling arm around Amy, who was quietly sobbing.

When Penny and Leonard returned from their late after-theater dinner, Amy was waiting, perched on the top step of the stairs outside Penny's apartment. She was too upset to drive home, and the only thing she could think to do was wait for Penny to return. That was all the information Penny had been able to get from the distraught young woman. Realizing that Penny needed to help her friend, Leonard quickly excused himself.

Penny wondered if Leonard found out anything from Sheldon. All Penny was able to do the night before was to get Amy to drink some water. She pondered offering some soothing pharmaceuticals, but she knew Amy shied away from anything stronger than wine. And Penny didn't think getting the girl drunk was a good idea. Instead, she sat with her, holding her and making soothing noises until exhaustion took over and Amy fell asleep on the couch. Penny hardly slept at all, worrying about her friend. She sent an emergency text to Bernadette early this morning. Whatever happened, she was sure she would need reinforcements to deal with it.

After three cups of tea, Amy was just beginning to speak coherently about the previous evening's events. But she still paused every few moments for another crying jag. Thus far, the only thing Penny was sure about was that Amy and Sheldon were making out when they returned from the play. Penny was fairly sure that wasn't what was bothering the woman.

"Penny?" Amy called.

Penny turned and flew back to the couch, sitting beside her friend and putting a consoling arm across her shoulders.

"I'm here, sweetie. Can you tell us any more about what happened?"

Amy only shook her head and continued crying.

The only time Penny had dealt with a girlfriend who was in so much distress about a man, it had been a high school chum who moved in with her boyfriend, only to come to Penny's three days later with a swollen black eye and bruises across her arms and legs. The girl found out she was pregnant, and when she told her boyfriend, he accused her of trying to trap him and demanded she move out. But not before beating her black and blue and, as he put it, "having one more shot at her before she got fat and ugly", whether she wanted to or not. And she hadn't wanted to.

Penny was virtually certain nothing remotely similar happened between Sheldon and Amy. Sheldon might be a whack-o, who occasionally exhibited behavior that was a throwback to his Texan roots, but she didn't believe he was violent. Then Penny remembered that one never knew what really went on between a man and a woman in private. Amy didn't have any visible damage, but some men confined their beatings to areas that were usually covered by a woman's clothing. On the other hand, there might not be any visible damage if Sheldon had forced… No! No way! Penny simply couldn't believe that the admittedly crazy by basically gentle man could do such a thing. Still, if Amy was this upset and so reluctant to talk about it…

And then there was Sheldon's reaction when Penny told him Amy was there. He'd been terrified, and demanded to know what Amy said. It really couldn't be that! Could it?

Penny swore under her breath, causing Bernadette to look up from her renewed efforts at getting Amy calmed down. If Sheldon had hurt Amy somehow Penny resolved to skewer his balls with a rusty icepick and roast them in front of his eyes. And to think she'd been trying to help him!

Penny tried to dismiss such thoughts. After all, since Amy said nothing specific, she really had no clue what happened. Given the inexperience of both involved, it was entirely possible that things had gone farther than expected. Sheldon really didn't know what to do to prepare a woman. With Amy being a virgin, there might have been quite a bit of pain. On the other hand, it was also possible that Sheldon had made advances, but Amy was not as ready to get physical with him as she claimed. It was possible Amy simply ran scared from the situation. That could certainly explain Sheldon's reaction. After being told repeatedly that Amy wanted sex, he'd be extremely confused if she ran out on his first attempt at seduction.

Penny sighed. She wished Amy would calm down and tell them what happened. All this speculation was making her head spin.

Amy was hiccuping now. The sobs seemed to have subsided and she reached for the tepid tea. Penny stroked her friends back soothingly and helped her take a few sips. Amy reached for another tissue, sat back and wiped her eyes and tossed the tissue on top of a growing pile. She took in a very deep breath.

"That was Sheldon, wasn't it?" she asked, not looking at either of her friends.

"Yes, sweetie." Penny wasn't sure what to tell Amy about Sheldon's aborted visit. She figured the Fun With Flags ruse wasn't a good idea, but she certainly wasn't going to tell Amy that she'd been schooling Sheldon on the art of seduction. She'd just have to wing it.

"He didn't really come over here to work on Fun With Flags, did he?"

"No, sweetie," Penny answered, handing Amy another tissue. "Sheldon… was worried about you. He's been trying to call you and he came over to see if I knew where you were."

Penny crossed her fingers, hoping against hope that this was all just some sort of misunderstanding or the confusion of the blind leading the blind; or one virgin leading another to be more exact. If it was anything more dire on Sheldon's part, expressing sympathy for the man to Amy could mean the end of their friendship.

"Oh!" Amy said, suddenly looking towards the door, "I hadn't thought about what he must be feeling. Do you think he's upset about all this, too?"

"Well, Amy," Bernadette interjected, "it's a little hard for us to tell since you haven't really told us what happened. Maybe if you give us a few more details, we might be able to help you work this out."

Amy glanced from Penny to Bernadette and back to Penny again.

"Yea, what she said." Penny said. "Why don't you try to just… calmly… tell us what happened. Start at the beginning. What did you two do when you got back from the theater?"

Finally, Amy began to describe the events of the prior evening. She told them of Sheldon's apology for breaching the Relationship Agreement and his proposal to revise it. Then she related Sheldon's hesitant request to kiss her. She nearly broke down again telling them about his reaction to her response to his request. Then she told them about the kiss itself. In much the way that Sheldon's descriptions of their Valentine's Day activities had provoked a response, Penny found herself uncomfortably squirming as Amy became increasingly vivid in her descriptions of the kiss and Sheldon's venture onto second base. Penny could hardly believe it. Who knew the Shamy was so hot?

Then Amy stopped. She was leaning forward, her head in her hands. Penny was afraid this might be the start of another crying jag. She looked helplessly at Bernadette and both women shrugged their shoulders, at a loss as to what more they could do. Then Amy reared back up.

"And then I put my hand on his chest. I had my eyes closed, so I was reaching out blind, you know? I just wanted to put my arm around him so I moved my hand down, but when I got to his waist, Sheldon stopped kissing me and ran in the bathroom. He…he…he had an erection!"

And…it started again. In the middle of her wailing, Amy reached over, grabbed two tissues, held them to her nose and blew explosively. Throwing those down, they landed on Bernadette's foot, who tried to kick the disgusting things off. Amy grabbed more tissues and wiped her eyes.

"No," Amy said, "no, I've got to stop this. You girls are so sweet to try and comfort me. You really are the best besties a girl could want. But I have to face the fact that Sheldon finds me repulsive. He'll never want anything more than an intellectual relationship with me, because HE CAN'T STAND THE THOUGHT OF ME TOUCHING HIM!"

Amy commenced to wail again, and Penny tried to grab more tissues, but the box was empty. She jumped up and ran to the bathroom, bringing back a roll of toilet paper. Ripping off a long sheet, she wadded it up and thrust it at her friend. At least now she had some idea of what the problem was. Lord, save her from inexperienced virgins!

"Amy," Bernadette soothed, "You need to stop crying, honey. I'm sure Sheldon isn't repulsed by you."

Penny started rubbing Amy's back again and motioned for Bernadette to go get some more tea for the weeping woman.

"He…he…he's not?" Amy looked up, and while she was hiccupping and her nose was running, she stopped crying and used the wad of toilet paper to blow her nose again.

"No, Amy." Penny shook her head to emphasize the point. "I know I'm not an expert in these matters…."

Amy snorted. The first glimmer of a smile crossed her face.

"Ok, well I do have a bit of experience." Penny nodded, "And I can tell you from that experience that a man who is repulsed by a woman does not get a boner when he's kissing her." Penny wadded up more tissue and handed it to Amy.

"Wipe your eyes, sweetie. You've got so much mascara streaking down your cheeks you look like an Indian war chieftain."

Bernadette returned with three more cups of tea and Penny took a long swallow. She really needed something stronger to deal with the apparently ashamed Shamy, but tea would have to do for now.

"Amy," she began, choosing her words carefully. She couldn't let on that she'd been discussing this subject with Sheldon for several days now. "Obviously, Sheldon has realized that, like you, he wants to start taking your relationship to a new level. And like you, this is all very new to him. He may not have realized the affect that being close to you would have on him, and he's probably just terribly embarrassed. You need to give him the time to understand that it's perfectly normal, and that, really, it's kinda what you want to have happen at some point, if you're going to…you know."

Penny leaned back and tried to relax.

"I think he's just as concerned about you, Amy. He's probably thinking he scared you off, or that you're weirded out by… well, by what happened. If you feel up to it, you should really give him a call. At least let him know that you're ok. Then, later this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow, after you've had a chance to pull yourself together and change clothes, you can sit down and talk to him about what happened."

Amy looked up again at her friend. "You really think so?"

"Of course, I do, Amy. You're the Shamy! You two can get through anything if you just talk about it."

Amy frowned. "I told you, I don't like that name. Don't use that name."


Author's Note: I just want to say that, apparently, I'm not in charge of this story anymore. Penny came up with that whole violence bit all by herself. How she could entertain such notions about Sheldon – even for a moment – is beyond me. This was not in my notes or my outline anywhere, but she just had to have her say.

I'm going to see if I have better luck keeping Sheldon in line in the next chapter. Wish me luck.

FF_1807614_ 6/10/2013