"Sheldon!"

Bang, bang, bang.

"Open up. It's quarter past 8," Penny called, to the locked door.

It was Monday morning and he hadn't come knocking, for his lift to work. There was an eerie silence, on the other side, which made her belly tighten horribly. After Raj mentioned the movie, he had gone very quiet, excused himself early and taken off to his room. Amy was both annoyed and concerned, "He won't open the door," she said, after failing to coax him out. "What's wrong with him?"

"Where do we start?" Howard mocked.

"Maybe he's retiring to complete the pupae stage of his transformation into…" Raj lifted his eyebrows towards Howard.

"The Swooping Shel-moth!" they chorused in unison.

Amy frowned. She didn't feel in the mood for jokes right now.

"I'm sure he'll be okay tomorrow," said Bernadette, trying to sound reassuring.

"He's probably just moody because he didn't get to lord it over your photo shoot," said Howard.

"Yeah, you know what he's like, when he doesn't get his way," Raj agreed.

"I guess," Penny said, feeling a little anxious.

Howard leaned in, with a wink. "Count yourself lucky," he said.

That evening she went to bed, wracked with guilt. There was no way of knowing what was going on his Sheldon's mind. He was so unpredictable and a little fragile. What if he never spoke to her again? This was too unbearable to imagine. So, the following morning, when he didn't turn up at 8am sharp, she began banging on the door, as hard as she could. "Sheldon!" she pleaded, "You'll be late!"

Finally the latch clicked and the door crept open a crack, "There really is no need to shout," he said.

She gasped, "I was worried. It's quarter past already."

"You deceived me," he said, sadly.

The words were so unexpected, she stuttered her reply, "I-I-I know, I'm really sorry," she said.

"I can understand you deceiving Leonard but I never thought you would do that to me."

"I feel terrible Sheldon. It all happened so fast when you insisted on helping with the shoot. And, I really wanted you to come," she said, hoping this would swing it.

"You did?" he said, shyly.

"Yes! I swear!" she crossed her hand across her heart.

He hesitated for a brief moment and then brightened a little, "I thought as much," he said, emerging from the apartment and pulling the door behind him.

It had worked and she instantly felt better, but as they started towards the stairs she realized what he had said, "Wait a minute! What do you mean you can, understand me deceiving Leonard?" she snapped.

"Well, I have always known your relationship had an element of circumvention about it."

"Had a…!"

No, she was not going to get mad and demand to know what that meant. Instead, they made their way silently down the stairs, to the car. Sheldon glided in and fastened his seat belt, in one fluid movement. When he was a young boy, he had been forced to take dancing lessons. She watched him straightening up and noted that a little of that grace had stayed with him. "You do forgive me, don't you?" she found herself saying.

"I do."

"Great," she said, starting the engine and pulling into the line of traffic.

"I fully appreciate your predicament."

Penny frowned. "My predicament?" she said, posing the question cautiously and wondering if she might not like the answer.

"Mrs. Hofstadter explained it to me."

"Oh not this again, Sheldon. She has it all wrong."

"She also explained how denial manifests."

She glanced towards him, narrowing her eyes. "Did she?"

"Oh yes, what is commonly known as denial of cycle, which is what you present within all your romantic entanglements. And denial of fact, over your fixation with me."

Penny frowned, "Yeah right!"

"Yes, just like that!" he said, happily. "Although, I have no understanding why one would be afflicted with such."

"YOU! " she bellowed, "YOU have no understanding of why….?" Her mouth dropped open. "You have no….!" She really couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Of course I don't," he frowned, "And you are repeating yourself. Leonard does exactly the same thing, it's most disconcerting."

"Sheldon! You are Captain Denial! You wrote the book on denial! You have the t-shirt, membership and the ID card to prove it!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Barbarella!"

"Please don't bring her into this," he said curtly and looked out the opposite window.

"Oh boy!"

"I will see you tonight, when I expect you will want to discuss this further?" he said and stepped out of the car.

She rolled her eyes. Discuss what further? There was nothing to discuss. He was completely off his head.

Later that evening, after driving him back home…

"Sheldon I'm exhausted, I do not want to play giant jenga," Penny said, as they walked up the stairs.

"Klingon boogle? Talisman? Super Mario? Elementary Latin with whimsical puns?" he said, excitedly.

"Why don't you play these games with Amy on Thursday? Or invite the guys over."

"Because, you are driving me to my various commitments and engagements this week, I see it as my civil duty to exercise you lethargic and thoroughly disengaged brain. It's the very least I can do."

She groaned. "If you really want to do your civil duty you could buy me dinner. The pay for the commercial won't clear my account until friday."

"You feed the stomach, but not the mind, Penny," he said, shaking his head.

"Yes and my stomach is a genius!"

Sheldon gave her a baffled look and was going to argue this, but decided against it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys instead.

"Are you sure you don't want commission for helping me with the commercial?"

"Quite sure."

"Well Shellybean, I'm going to reward you anyway. We are going to hit the town on friday! I'm taking you out!"

He frowned at the use of his nickname, "No thank you. It's Chinese on fridays and I prefer to stay in," he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

"Nooooo, let's go out. Don't you want celebrate with me?"

"Certainly," he said, "with Chinese!"

She rolled her eyes and wandered inside, dragging her feet and launching her bag in the direction of the couch. It landed with the clunk. Then flopping herself down next to it, she looked up with a pout. "I want to do something special for you, after all your help on the weekend. And don't tell me Chinese is special," she warned, as he opened his mouth to protest.

He looked a little pensive and then said, "Hmmm, well there is one special event, I would like to go too."

Penny curled her lip in shock, "Seriously?"

"The comic book store is having a science fiction party on Friday, to coincide with the release of Riddick."

"And how is that special?" she asked, sarcastically.

"We can dress up."

"Let me guess, you'll be the Flash?"

He stood before her, his lips curled in a contented smile. For a genius, he really was a cute little idiot, she thought and started to giggle to herself. "Alright," she said, "but why I'm agreeing to this, I'll never know."

Sheldon ordered the food, which arrived very quickly and smelt amazing. She was absolutely ravenous and tucked in straight away, as he rambled on about China's rice production, per land coverage. Which she wasn't really taking in.

"So, what did you want to tell me the other morning?" she asked, "before the photo shoot."

His gaze was contemplative, he rose and went over to the desk, opening a drawer and removing the pocket watch he had brought on their trip to the jewelry store. Returning with it in hand, to sit back down. "This will be interesting," he said.

"What's that for?" she asked, looking at the watch and shoveling in another mouthful.

"An experiment, he said.

She shrugged. "What kind of experiment?"

"I didn't wash them," he simply said, clicking the button on top of the watch.

"What?" she asked, "you didn't wash what?"

Sheldon simply pursed his lips and very carefully placed the watch down and picked up his food again.

"What the hell? Are you timing me?!"

He didn't respond.

"What do you mean, you didn't wash them? You didn't wash what?"

"I'm not going to help you," he said.

She huffed and continued to eat in silence. Sheldon was picking away at his rice patiently with a decidedly smug expression. She glanced at the stopwatch spinning away on the coffee table in front of them. "I don't care what that's for," she said, sulkily but the darn thing kept catching her attention. "You big weirdo!" she added, defensively.

Sheldon ignored her and took a small mouthful.

Then she had it! "Your laundry!" she burst out.

"What about it?"

"Urm…. maybe on Saturday…. after the photo shoot you forgot to wash it."

"As you know, the shoot ended at 6pm and then we came directly home. I did my laundry at 8.15pm as per my usual routine."

"Huh!"

The stopwatch hands spun away in the most irritating way, she leaned towards it. "Leave it!" he warned.

"I wasn't ganna," she lied.

She could feel his eyes boring into her, with indignation. "Okay, I was but heaven forbid that I should touch anything that belongs to you, or your food, or your person."

He turned with his eyebrows raised, expectantly.

"What?!" she spat.

Sheldon sighed.

Wracking her brain, she put down her food and went over what she remembered, about yesterday morning. What was he getting at? Then her eyes widened and she shook her finger at him, "You!" she pointed, "…you… the other day! Y-y-you touched me."

"Yeeeessss," he prompted.

"Oh my god! you never do that! You never touch other people."

He simply nodded.

"So that's it then?"

"What?"

"What you were going to tell me before Amy arrived?"

"No."

"Damn it! Okay, I can work this out," she said, "I knocked on the door…"

"You bellowed outside my door," he corrected.

"Then you opened up and we fell over here on the couch and you dropped to your knees. Then you massaged my legs, then that's it."

He gave her a derisive look.

"Sheldon, that is all that happened because Amy arrived after that."

"That is not all that happened."

"Well, you didn't massage them long because I did took over, while you were washing…." She clapped her hand over her open mouth and turned to face his knowing blue eyes. His hands. Sheldon the germaphobe did not wash his hands!

Sheldon picked up the watch and clicked the button to stop. "Ten minutes and thirty eight seconds," he said, shaking his head in disappointment. "You really ought to think about stretching your reasoning powers by…" but before he could say another word, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close. "Oh!" he gasped.

"Sheldon, I'm so happy for you," she said, as tears began to form in her eyes. "This is just wonderful," she said, squeezing him a little tighter and ignoring his limp, unresponsive manner. She was overcome with emotion, her heart swelling with warmth inside her chest and as she pulled back to see his delicate face, an impulse took over her. He was inches away, before reality hit her clean in the face.

Oh my god! I almost kissed him. What the hell am I doing?

Quickly removing her arms, she pulled away, her head spinning in alarm. "I-I'm very tired, I-I think I'll go to bed early." She said, feeling around for her bag and trying to pull it on her shoulder. It wouldn't do what she wanted it too, so she gave up in frustration and held it against her. Then staggering away from the couch, she left.

"Good night," he said, as she disappeared.