Penny opened the door to Sheldon and Leonard's apartment with hesitation. There was always a chance of seeing something disturbing, confusing, or nauseating (Howard showing off his leopard print briefs to Raj would forever be a key example).

Sure, sometimes they were just sitting on the floor around the living room table playing Love Letter, arguing over rankings and whatnot. Who came first the duchess or the baron?

There was always a possibility of toasters being turned into robot parts, instantaneous chemical reactions, or Lord of the Rings marathons, but mostly, there was always something weird.

So, it was a bit of a surprise, when Penny slowly opened the door to find Leonard in a bathrobe watching a biography on Kim Kardashian. Even she never did that.

"Um…Leonard," Penny took a seat next to him on the couch, smiling slightly as his eyes continued to be transfixed on the screen.

"Hmm," Leonard muttered, watching Kris Kardashian tear up while discussing Kim's deceased father.

"Something wrong with the SyFy channel, Blu Ray player, or iPad, buddy?"

"No," he said, wiping some incriminating fog from his glasses. "I never knew Kim went through so much pain in her life-"

"—iPod, board games, sword of Game of Thrones, books, magical things, Cheesecake Factory napkin, porn, masturbation, music, cracks in a sidewalk."

Leonard turned to face her, "that list is ridiculous."

"Seeing you watch this is ridiculous."

"There was nothing on."

"History channel is better than this and it's nothing but conspiracy theories."

Leonard smirked, "that's rich coming from the girl who believes in psychics, crystals, and alien life."

"That's rich coming from the boy whose entire life is about science fiction. Aliens don't exist, but Piccard, Spock, and Kirk do? What about the Doctor? Captain Mal and his crew of misfits aboard the Firefly? C3PO and R2D2? Hogwarts? A Chevy Impala—okay to be fair, that one exists, but I doubt there are two demon hunting brothers driving around the states—Ned Stark's bastard? Frodo and the Shire?"

Leonard gaped at her.

"But you draw the line at aliens?"

"You never watched any of that with me. In fact, the one time I tried to get you to watch Star Trek: Next Generation, you sat there and played doodle jump on your phone."

"That's because it was Next Generation, Leonard," she could make nerd jokes now, right? Just be one of the boys. After all, she didn't see any of them dating Sheldon Lee Cooper. Yeah, she definitely deserved the right to make nerd jokes.

It had to have some perks.

Not that Sheldon wasn't a perk on his own, he was.

Or he would have been before he ditched Penny on a train, for Amy. Yeah, you read that correctly. A three hour train ride to be exact.

Years ago, when Penny was awarded the crown at Corn Queens Court, Tommy Whitmore asked her out on a date. They made a beautiful couple, everybody said so. Blonde, athletic, gorgeous, popular, everyone thought they would be married by the end of the year.

They hadn't even made it to the end of the week before Tommy Whitmore had his tongue down stupid Mallory Diller's mouth. Her stupid ebony curls wrapped around his stupid hand, her stupid cherry lip balm covering his lips. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

That feeling was nothing compared to watching her boyfriend sit in the window seat across the aisle, next to another person. A person who was exactly like Sheldon except with a different anatomy. Amy was smart; she had a lucrative job doing something smart, she knew the difference between string theory and that other theory which Sheldon hated with loops. Loop theory? Loop Quantum Theory?—Or was that a plot from Babylon 5?

All Mallory Diller had was big breasts. She could compete with big breasts. Victoria Secret had a whole section dedicated to making your breasts appear larger than they were.

She could not compete with another Sheldon (Victoria Secret had yet to invent lingerie that made you smarter).

She wouldn't.

"Funny," Leonard laughed out loud and Penny jumped. "You always were funny and beautiful." Penny bit her lip to stop the groan of frustration as he skimmed her body from breasts to waist with his eyes. Seriously? Wasn't he over this?

"That's me." Never the smart one, always the prize.

"Well," Leonard reached down for the remote and turned off the television, "not that I don't enjoy your company, but Sheldon isn't here, as you know. What can I do for you? You obviously weren't here to watch the biography."

"No one would be here to watch that."

Leonard laughed, "Yeah, well…" He shrugged his shoulders and readjusted his robe. "What's up Penny?"

"Remember the picnic?"

"That was two days ago, yes."

"Remember Amy?"

"She's great! Yes, I remember Amy."

"Remember, remember the 5th of November?"

"Penny—," Leonard laughed.

"Sheldon ditched me on a train."

"Well," Leonard adjusted his robe, "of course he did. It's Sheldon on a train. If the train had breasts, I would tell you to worry."

"The train didn't have breasts, Amy had breasts." Penny winced, yeah; in no way did she want to think about Amy's breasts. "Amy is magnetic."

"Going to need some more context."

Penny groaned. Context, sure, context was needed. How about this for context Leonard? Penny drove Amy and Sheldon (who decided to sit in the back with Amy the entire ride) to the train station. Sheldon sat across from Penny on the train, even though she paid for their tickets using her tips from the Cheesecake Factory. Penny got to spend three hours listening to Sheldon talk about how the 'first American train didn't show up until 1826.' Or how, 'Through the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, not only local projects, but long-distance links, were completed, so that by 1860 the eastern half of the continent, especially the Northeast, was linked by a network of connecting railroads.' It was boring as hell to listen to, but at least she listened. That should count for something, right?

"Sheldon didn't even notice I was there. Amy was his perfect audience-," Penny slid over one cushion.

"Well that was tedious-," Sheldon threw his conductor hat on the ground before jumping on it repeatedly, "Amy has no appreciation for the train. Do you know what she said Leonard? She said the truest American invention was the airplane."

"No," Leonard whispered, watching Penny dig herself deeper into the couch cushion. "What did you think of Amy?"

"What did I think of Amy?" Sheldon placed his keys into the key bowl and took off his favorite satchel before pacing in the living room, "what did I think of Amy?"

"Yes," Penny murmured," tell us how awesome you found her. Some of us can't wait to hear."

"In a word," Sheldon walked into the kitchen and got himself a bottle of Smart-Water, "unappreciative. Amy was unwilling to listen to anything I had to say. I tried to be nice to her Penny, I really did. I even asked her if she would come to the comic book store so that you weren't alone in learning the new subplots. If I can teach Walowitz how to fix a space-toilet, I can certainly teach two women about Thor's hammer."

"Okay," Leonard said.

"She said I was a nerd."

"You are a nerd," Penny smiled slightly, watching Sheldon out of the corner of her eye.

"Yes, but I'm a cool nerd. I'm thee nerd. The King of Nerds; she had no right."

"So…" Penny sat up on the couch cushion, "what does this mean?"

"Amy and I agreed we would be cordial to each other, as to not ruin the new friendship you two have started. We will talk about work, weather, and science. On Tuesday we will gather together to share our infinite knowledge of many topics and broaden the horizon of the regular folk, with our "Fun with Flags" special for YouTube. Both enlightening and entertaining; but that is all. Worst. Train Audience. Ever. I knew I should have sat with Penny, but no….mom always said to welcome guests into the group. Boy, was she wrong." Sheldon walked out of the room and into his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him.

"Feeling better," Leonard asked, smiling at the broad grin on Penny's face.

"Guess I just needed context."

"Imagine that."

Penny rolled her eyes, "shut up Leonard." She quickly left the cushion, tapped Leonard appreciatively on the shoulder, and made her way to Sheldon's bedroom.

The genius needed an audience after all.