"Penny!" Bridget admonished, gasping upon seeing her sisters reflection in the mirror as she finished applying her mascara. "You said you were going to wear something under that dress to cover up!"

Shrugging dismissively, Penny went over to the sink to wash her hands. "I changed my mind when I saw how good I looked this way."

Stepping back, Bridget placed her hands on her hips, giving her sister a disapproving glare. "I knew buying you that push-up bra was going to come back and bite me in the ass one day."

"In a skirt that tight, I don't think it's me who's going to be biting your ass." Penny retorted as she dried her hands.

"Funny. You ready to go?"

"Sure." Giving herself a final check-over in the mirror, Penny nodded and followed her sister out of the bathroom and into the front room.

Instantly, Leonard stood from the couch with a wide smile. His girlfriend in her new dress was way better than re-watching an episode of Babylon 5 airing on television that night with Josh by miles. "Wow."

"I know, right?" Penny grinned, spinning once on the spot to show off from all angles before stepping toward him.

"You look amazing."

"Thank you." Penny put her hands on his chest, running them up and down and enjoying the softness of the material against his hard chest. "You look great too. I love this shirt on you. You look hot dressed up all smart."

"Yeah, yeah, you two save that for after." Bridget nudged Penny as she walked past her, picking up the keys and her purse. "Let's get going."

Grabbing a couple of juice cartons from the fridge, Penny's brow furrowed curiously as she heard a noise behind her. Leonard was still in the guestroom, there was no awkward 'sorry' so it wasn't Josh, which just left... "hey, Bridge," Penny smiled almost guiltily as she turned around, closing the fridge behind her. "Just getting some juice."

"At half two in the morning?"

There was a pause before Penny admitted, "Leonard really liked my dress, and I really like him dressed up like that in a shirt. We were watching a movie before that, the new Sandra Bullock one."

"Ooh, that's a good movie. Well then I guess I can tell you that there was ass biting involved tonight." Bridget shrugged, moving past Penny to go to the fridge and grab herself a water bottle, opening it and taking a long gulp. "I can't believe you're still all over that multivitamin juice."

"What? It's awesome! Mom and Dad hardly ever buy it because they have to go all the way out to the big store that sells it, and even then they usually forget."

"Fortunately this means I can report back to Mom and Dad that you just drank multivitamin juice the whole time and they'll be satisfied. Can't believe you chose it earlier over wine. And that you had it at the restaurant. Soda at least would have been better. Grapes?" Bridget offered, holding out a handful she'd just taken from the fruit drawer in the fridge.

"No thanks. I just ate your last chocolate éclair."

"I know, you have chocolate around your mouth. You really are still a kid. Apart from the fact that you're wearing Leonard's shirt; that's got 'hey, I'm not a kid anymore!' written all over it."

"Whatever." Penny shrugged, wiping at her mouth with her hand to remove the chocolate. "Do you have any potato chips or something?"

"Yeah, in the cupboard behind you."

"Thanks. By the way, can you close that fridge? It's cold and I have no panties on. All kinds of breezy down there." Penny frowned, before turning around to open the cupboard. "Can I have the unopened pack?"

"Sorry. Sure." Bridget took out the entire box of grapes before she shut the fridge. "Knew I shouldn't have skipped desert. I could have gone without that information though."

"You're my sister, you gave me my first bikini wax and advised me on the best articles in Cosmopolitan when I started going out with Leonard. Since when does my lack of panties bother you?"

"It doesn't, it was the breezy part." Bridget laughed, popping a grape into her mouth. "It's just a little different now you're older and dating a guy and stuff."

"You've dated a million guys and never stopped telling me all that stuff."

"Still... breezy. Do you know how much Dad would hate the idea of us having this conversation?"

"His two little girls talking about sex and what they're not wearing? He'd kill us." Penny nodded, amused. "Though I hope he'd be glad we're still talking to each other and still this close, rather than hating each other and not being able to stand being together or even related. And that you're eating grapes rather than drinking them."

"And that neither of us are in rehab."

"That's a bit mean on Scott."

"I know. I just meant that things could be worse, all things considered." Suddenly, Bridget smiled. "You really did turn out pretty damn well, Penny."

"One of us had to." Penny grinned. "I'm going back to bed. G'night, Bridge."

"Night, Penny." Bridget smiled fondly after her sister as she turned and walked off back to the guestroom. No matter how strange it was seeing her growing up and changing, seeing just how happy Penny was trumped all of that by far.

"Oh my God," Penny exclaimed halfway through the journey back to Omaha, eyes glued to her phone. "Some guy called Stuart asked Amy out on a date!"

"Stuart?" Leonard raised a brow, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as they waited at a red light. "As in Stuart whose father owns the Comic Book Store? That Stuart?"

Eyes widening in shock, Penny turned her head to look at Leonard. "You reckon that's the Stuart who asked Amy out?"

"I don't know, ask her." Leonard suggested. "But that's the only Stuart I can think of."

"Man," Penny said as she quickly tapped out a text to Amy, "you go away for a few days and Amy's getting hit on by a whole other kind of nerd."

"I hardly think Amy being asked out by Stuart counts as being 'hit on', do you? I mean... if it's the Stuart we think it is." Leonard said, driving off once the light turned green for them.

"Come on, this never happens to her, it totally counts as getting hit on. A girl deserves that once in a while." Penny's eyes widened once more as she read her incoming message and hit Leonard's arm. "It is that Stuart!"

"Hello, I'm driving!" Leonard flinched and wiggled his arm slightly. "That hurt!"

"Sorry, I got excited. Can you believe that? What do you think Sheldon'll say?"

"Well, he'll probably deny that he's not okay with him having asked her out and then he'll do something crazy."

"He's done this before?"

"Are you crazy? It's Sheldon, of course he hasn't. But from observation that's my hypothesis on how things will go as the situation unravels."

"What would you do if someone else asked me out?" Penny asked curiously.

"I dunno. Probably hope from afar that you say no to him or that your Dad gets there first and scares him away because he's not as Wyatt-approved as I am." Leonard shrugged. "What about you?"

"Get my baseball bat and 'accidentally' hit the girl in the head during gym class." Penny stated simply, not batting an eyelid. She returned to her phone as though she'd given a perfectly innocent answer.

"Uh..." Leonard paused, brows raised for a few moments as he tried to work out how he was supposed to respond to that. "Umm, you have a baseball bat?"

"Yeah, but my Dad took it away from me after I hit a ball at Bridget's window and smashed it when I was mad at her." Penny sighed.

"Wow." Leonard gulped, not quite accustomed to this more vicious and violent side of Penny. Though in a way it was sweet that she would do that for him. Kind of, anyway. He hoped she wouldn't, because that'd be a lot of trouble. Still, it was nice that she'd go through that trouble for him.

"It's my Dad's own fault for teaching me to have such a good swing, really. He used to call me Slugger. I'm gonna go to Amy's tomorrow and help her figure out what to do. You should probably go over to Sheldon's and tell him what's happening."

"Yeah, probably," Leonard agreed. "You wanna stay at mine tonight or go home?"

"Hmm, lets see. A night of talking to my parents about my sister or a night in with my boyfriend... tough choice." Penny giggled. "Are your parents gonna be in?"

"Actually, they're not. Dad's gone on another expedition and Mom should be leaving within the next hour - I can't remember exactly what time she said - for a trip back to New Jersey."

"Thank God, I don't think I could take another lecture on the importance of checking for brain damage. I mean come on, I hit it in a car, I didn't fall off my horse head-first!" Penny rolled her eyes. "This is good, finally some time where it's just the two of us around and no-one else."

Leonard smiled, glancing quickly to look at her. "I like that you look forward to spending time where it's just the two of us."

"You seem surprised."

"You're a social person, when we first started going out I always thought you'd end up wanting to spend more time with your friends than with me."

"I do like hanging out with my friends. But with them I don't get to cuddle, or borrow their t-shirts, or make-out... you get the jist. I love my friends and I love spending time with you but I love you way more."

"You're cute."

"Wrong. I'm adorable." Penny reminded him. "What's cute is your tushy." As Leonard grinned smugly, Penny sighed as her phone rang. "Hold on, it's Mom. I text her saying that I'm staying at yours tonight and this is what I get instead." She hit the answer button and held the phone to her ear. "Hey, Mom. Yeah. No, I'm going to Amy's tomorrow so I'll come home after that. I guess around dinner, yeah. Okay, I'll ask him. Leonard, Mom wants to know if you want to come over for dinner tomorrow."

"Sure, that sounds nice."

"He says yes. Oh, yeah I got that dress when I went shopping with Bridge. She said the same thing. Because I looked good in it like that! Whatever, you still liked the photo of me wearing it. Yeah, they got through like the entire box set! They were practically glued to that couch. Once they made me change the disc over, can you believe it? No, Bridge's laundry was fine. Yeah she shared the Cheesecake. I put a picture of that on Facebook too, Mom. Look, I'm gonna go now because we're approaching a tunnel. I'll speak to you tomorrow anyway when I'm home. Will do. Okay, bye Mom. Love you too." Hanging up the phone, Penny put it down in her lap. "Mom says hi and said you look like a handsome grown up guy in your blue shirt."

"Oh, that's nice of her. And we were not glued to the couch. It was just very comfortable and we were enjoying the box set."

"That's glued in my books."

"Oh, hey Mrs. Fowler." Penny smiled as Amy's mother answered the door. "I'm here to see Amy."

"Hello, Penny." Mrs. Fowler smiled awkwardly before stepping back and letting Penny in. "Come in. Amy is upstairs."

"Thank you." Giving a small nod, Penny made her way upstairs and over to Amy's bedroom before knocking. "Amy?"

"Come in," Amy called, though she got up to open the door anyway. "Hey bestie!"

"Hey Ames," Penny chuckled at her friends enthusiasm as she stepped inside, going to take a seat at her desk as she usually did when she was here. "How're you doing?"

"Wonderful! Two boys like me. That's two more than in my entire lifetime." Amy was positively beaming from ear to ear. "How about you? I heard you went to visit your sister. Did you have a nice time?"

"Yeah, it was really good, though Leonard mostly just spent his time with Josh watching some box set of some TV show with commentary."

"Who's Josh?"

"My sisters boyfriend."

"Ah, yes, that makes sense considering a guy named Josh was tagged in the photos with Leonard, your sister and yourself." Amy nodded. "That dress, by the way? Smokin' hot."

"Thank you." Penny blinked, not sure how to respond to Amy's use of the phrase 'smokin' hot'. "So, uh, did you decide what to do about Stuart?"

"No." Amy replied, sitting on the edge of her bed and placing her hands on her knees.

After waiting for a further answer, Penny realized that was all she was going to get. "Oh. Okay. Well... what's stopping you?"

"Sheldon. I haven't told him yet. I'm not sure of the protocol for going out with somebody else when you're going out with a guy already."

"Yeah, but it's Sheldon." Penny giggled.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Just... are you two exclusive? Like, did you agree not to date other people?"

Shaking her head, Amy looked over at Penny. "We did not."

"Well there you go then. It doesn't hurt to look around. Have you guys even done... anything?"

"Sometimes he comes over when it's dark and we drink tea." Amy said, before frowning. "I suppose it would be nice to go on a proper date. According to Sheldon, one was enough."

"See? It'll be nice. And maybe it'll prompt him to think about what you want. I mean, do you really wanna just be drinking tea for the rest of your life or do you wanna get a few pumpkin lattes in there?"

"Oh, I do like pumpkin lattes." Amy nodded eagerly.

"There you go then. Sometimes you need a pumpkin latte to teach you which tea you want to be drinking... that made sense in my head. Anyway, listen, Leonard's gone to talk to Sheldon, so he'll have his buddy to confide in when he realizes he doesn't want you dating anybody but himself."

"You really think so?" Amy asked hopefully.

"Of course! Come on, it's Sheldon, he comes to your house after dark. For him that's like... practically coitus."

"Bet you and Leonard don't just sit around drinking tea." Amy said, disheartened, looking down at her hands.

"Actually, that's pretty much all we did last night. We put a movie on and just drank tea and ate some Pop Chips. His Mom wasn't home so we didn't even use coasters."

"Still, it probably ended with coitus."

"Well, yeah, but that's not the point. The point is that you and Sheldon have a different type of relationship and you need to define that. But if he's not willing to do that, then you still get to have your freedom of exploring other options. Maybe you'll find you don't like that or want to."

"Should I have coitus with Stuart?"

"We need to stop using the word coitus, I don't like it." Penny shuddered. "But no, don't do that. It's a date, Amy, lets not be too drastic. Look, relationships aren't just about sex."

"Seems like they are. Everyone else is doing it."

"Trust me, they're not. If they are, then they're not really relationships. If you can spend all that time with Sheldon and you still want to be with him, and he still wants to be with you, then you have something really special. I just don't think he realizes that yet, because it's Sheldon. This isn't his thing."

"Okay, I'll take your word for it." Amy smiled. "Thank you, Penny."

"Amy is free to go on a date with whomever she wants to." Sheldon insisted, after Leonard had explained to him that Stuart had asked Amy out on a date. "Now can we please stop obsessing over this and get back to our Mystic Warlords of Ka'a game?"

"Fine." Leonard sighed, looking at the pile in the middle. "Raj, it's your turn."

"Oh, right." Raj nodded, checking the pile and then looking at his cards before selecting one. "Wild Bill Witchcock."

"And anyway," Sheldon said, just as Leonard went to put a card down. "Stuart plans to go to art school. As if Amy would be interested in somebody with such low aspirations when she herself wishes to study Neurobiology."

"Just because they have different creative and academic interests, doesn't mean that they're not compatible. Penny likes acting and I like science." Leonard pointed out, before putting down a card. "A tribe of Abra-Comanches."

"Exactly! Bernadette's the cute little Biology Club President, and I am a hardcore rock star academic overachiever." Howard added before taking his turn. "Creepy Teepee."

"Really? You'd call yourself an academic overachiever?" Sheldon raised his brows. "That's how I know not to ask you for advice."

"Then why did you invite me over?"

"Leonard said you and Raj had the new expansion pack of the game and I wanted to play." Sheldon admitted after a small silence. "Then you all started harping on about Amy and ruined the fun. Incidentally - did you know that she plays the harp? I'm willing to bet Stuart doesn't know that."

"Now who's harping?" Howard rolled his eyes.

"I actually knew that. Penny told me." Leonard said.

"Really, Leonard? Do you have to drag more women into this conversation?" Sheldon shook his head disapprovingly.

"Okay, okay, I get it, you all have girlfriends, point made!" Raj rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Nobody was making a point of that." Sheldon furrowed his brow. "We're playing Mystic Warlords of Ka'a, Raj, not having a mothers meeting about which couple is doing what or which art-lover is trying to form a relationship with which brown-haired biology enthusiast."

"Right, we got it." Howard bobbed his head.

"Now lets get back to the game." Sheldon sat up straight, looking around at his friends as he waited for somebody to make the next move.

"It's your go, Sheldon." Leonard pointed out.

"Oh. Right."