A/N: Yes, I'm still alive and kicking. Life, however, has seen it fit to add some disruption into the mix, even before COVID. As a result, I wasn't exactly in the right place mentally to be writing. Recently I have picked it up again, working on the next story in my Penny Investigations universe. The story is there: I have the first 60% ready, and I know where it's going to end up at. But lately it has been fighting me.

I've also worked on a different story, but I have no idea (yet) if I'll be fleshing that one out anytime soon. It'll be a bigger project, and I want to have a clear view of how it is going to work.

Over the years, I've also jotted down ideas for alternate ways of Leonard and Penny meeting and starting a relationship. Yesterday, this idea popped into my brain and it insisted I write that. So, this is now the start of a new series of one chapter stories.

Anyway, this is all unbeta'd and therefor any and all mistakes are totally mine.

Disclaimer: Sadly, ownership of The Big Bang Theory and its characters has still not been transferred over to me.

Penny stepped out of her car. This was it; she was going to live on her own in the apartment she had managed to lease only an hour ago. Granted, she still needed to sign the lease, but the manager had assured her it was hers.

It was exciting and scary; nineteen years old and starting a new life in California, far away from home. Nobody to support her. If she would screw this up, she had nothing to fall back on. Oh, sure, her parents would bail her out, but would then also insist she moved back home.

That was not what she wanted to happen, so she needed to make the right choices, become financially independent. She had stayed with a friend for the past three weeks, but she was in a relationship and her apartment was definitely too small for three people.

"But when I called you two hours ago, you said the apartment was still available and you would hold it for me."

Penny halted as she approached the building's entrance, the door slightly ajar.

"Yeah, sorry, but someone else called. I wasn't really sure if you would actually show up. And, to be honest, I think she's a better fit for the building."

Penny frowned slightly. That sounded like she was the reason the bespectacled man - the only one of the two she could see - was now without an apartment. But what did the manager mean by her being a better fit? From what she could see, the young man facing the manager wasn't likely to cause a lot of trouble.

"A better fit?" The man asked her question.

"Yeah. I looked her up on Facebook while she was on the phone. Don't mind her moving in to the apartment right next to me."

Penny had heard enough; she had no desire to live next to a manager who had apparently decided she was a prize. But maybe there was a way to get around it and put this creep in his place?

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door further and walked inside, right up to the young man. "Hey Sweetie." She hugged him close, giving him a peck on the cheek. "Did you get the keys yet?"

The young man looked at her in surprise, then shook his head after a few seconds. "No. Somebody else got the apartment."

Inside Penny was happy the man decided to play along. Outwardly, she frowned, directing her gaze to the manager. Good call not wanting to live next to him, Penny thought as his gaze swept all over her body, lingering on her breasts on the way down and again on the way up, apparently deciding that was the best resting place for his eyes as he never looked at her face. "That's weird. The guy I talked to an hour ago said it was ours, that we just had to sign the lease."

"Yeah, I called two hours ago, and he said he'd hold it. Someone else called and apparently she got the apartment instead."

He played along nicely. And, contrary to the manager, was not looking at her boobs. Granted, he wasn't really looking at her all that much, clearly nervous, but the times he did look at her, his eyes were on her face.

Not liking the fact the manager had yet to move his eyes away from her breast, she moved closer to the young man who'd been cheated out of his apartment, hiding most of her chest in the process.

She really hoped her human shield wasn't going to faint because of it; he didn't strike her as a ladies man, and his nervousness didn't even seem to allow him to look at her for an extended period. "Oh, Honey, what do we do, now? We need this apartment."

His view apparently sufficiently obscured, he finally looked up to both their faces. He stared for a few seconds as if trying to figure out what he'd missed during the time he'd let himself get distracted. "Um, are you saying you two are a couple?"

Penny nodded, smiling and glancing at her pretend boyfriend. "Sure are. Two years, and still very much in love." Looking toward the manager she could see his eyes shift from her to the young man.

"No, you're not." He seemed very confident about his assertion. "You're way too hot for him."

Penny was seriously contemplating going all Nebraska on him.

Surprisingly, her fellow victim voiced his opinion. "Maybe she is. I fully admit to being the luckiest guy in the world that she chose me. But we are together. And I really didn't appreciate you ogling my girlfriend when she just stepped through the door."

"I checked her Facebook page and there are no photo's of you," the creep said, apparently deciding the hole should be a little deeper than it already was.

Before either of them could respond, a voice came from their left. "Mr. Underhill!"

The man before them turned to his right, facing the woman who had just spoken. He was far less smug now, Penny noted happily, before she, too, turned toward the woman. She wore a nice suit and - the best part - an angry expression, directed at the creepy manager.

"I'm glad I decided to come by and check why the apartment next to you had such a high turnover rate." The woman's angry features were now very close to this Underhill character. "I had my suspicions when I noticed that since assigning you as manager for this building, every lease contract had been with young women."

Like me, Penny realized.

"That's just a coincidence," Underhill replied. "It's not my fault only females responded to the listings."

"Before you continue, you should know I've been standing over there," she pointed where she'd appeared from, "long enough to hear what you said to this gentleman. Most damning being your admission that you'd rather have her moving in next to you."

"Come on, Katie," Underhill began, but was immediately cut off.

"Don't address me by my first name ever again!" Katie nearly spat in his face with that one. "You seem to forget that I am the owner here, and you are just my employee." Katie stepped back half a step and in a calmer manner, but still with a clearly angry undertone, continued. "Or rather, you are my former employee."

Katie stared at him, almost as if daring Underhill to say or do something. Apparently he was smart enough not to attack his now former employer. Regardless, Katie added, "And just so there are no misunderstandings, I have recorded your entire conversation with these people. I also intent to contact the former residents of this particular apartment." She stepped aside and pointed down the hall. "Pack up your stuff. I want you gone within the hour." She raised an eyebrow after waiting a few second. "Tick-tock, Mr. Underhill!"

# # #

"I'd like to apologize on behalf of my employee," Katie began, addressing both Penny and her friend. "The first two months you won't have to pay." She picked up the lease contract. "I see only your name," she pointed at Penny, "is on this contract. I'll have to update it and reprint, but that will only take a minute."

"Oh, um," her new found friend began. "We are not together. Before she stepped inside, I've never even met her."

"Yeah," Penny added. "I just wanted to put that creep in his place."

Katie looked between the two. "Oh. Looks like Mr. Underhill has created something of an issue, here. Currently, that apartment is the only one I have available. The apartment he is now vacating has to unfortunately be kept available for the new building manager."

Penny glanced to the man standing next to her. She really needed the apartment. Moving back in with her friend and her boyfriend wasn't a good idea. Things had become very tense the past week already. She had no other place to go. But could she really take this apartment away from her new friend? He clearly had been promised the apartment before she had called.

"Oh, um…" Her friend said, fidgeting with his hands nervously. "May- maybe it would be better for you to take it?"

"Are you sure?" Penny asked.

He nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "I'm sure I'll find another apartment soon."

That didn't sound like he had a back-up to fall back on. "Where will you stay if you can't find an apartment today?"

He shrugged. "Um… I'm sure I'll find some place to stay."

"If you want, you could stay here with me," Penny said without hesitation. "I am kind of responsible for you not having a place to stay."

"Y-you're offering to, um, share an apartment?"

Penny nodded and smiled. "Sure. That way I know you at least have somewhere to sleep tonight. And you can just take your time to find a nice apartment. You know, so you don't have to settle with something you're not too happy with." She turned to Katie. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"Well, it's just a one bedroom," Katie began. "And there's no furniture."

Penny nodded. "Yeah, I remember. I do have a lawn chair and I can pick-up a bed from a friend in an hour." She turned to her new friend. "And you?"

"Oh, um, a lawn chair and an air mattress."

"Problem solved," Penny said, turning back to Katie.

The next few minutes were spent going over and eventually signing the lease contract, which would only hold her name. With the keys in her hand, Penny and her new, unexpected and temporary roommate walked over to the apartment. Just as she was about to push the key into the lock, she heard someone fumbling with the door of the apartment right next to her, prominently labeled 'Manager'.

Realizing this Under-asshole was about to make an appearance again and not wanting him to even think about being right about her faking it earlier, she turned around, placed her arms on the shoulders of her perplexed looking roommate, and kissed him, right as the door to the manager's apartment opened.

"What do you possibly see in him?"

Penny broke off the kiss, which had been surprisingly good. "Best sex, ever," she said, with a shrug. "No competition," she added, turning around to unlock her apartment. She turned to her partner in crime. "Come on, Sweetie. We need to christen every place in the apartment before the furniture gets here."

With satisfaction, Penny watched Under-looser angrily walk away. He stopped midway and started to turn around. Penny simply pulled her roommate inside and closed the door behind them. He still looked perplexed at what had just happened. Penny held out her hand at him. "Hi, I'm Penny."

He looked at her hand then back up at her face, clearly even more confused than he had been before.

"I figured," Penny began, "since we're gonna share an apartment, it might be a good thing to at the very least know each other's name."

"Oh," he said, nodding. "Right." He shook her hand briefly. "Leonard."

# # #

"Well," Leonard began. "I started having doubts when I ran into the previous roommate and he warned me to run away, fast and far. Anyway, I went up to the right floor, but knocked on the wrong door. A large, African-American transvestite opened the door."

Penny frowned. "Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Leonard's eyes widened. "No! I mean, it surprised me, but I certainly didn't think he was crazy!"

Penny nodded, relieved her temporary roommate wasn't one of those people.

"Like I said, it was the wrong apartment, but he… or should that be she? Anyway, they told me the crazy one lived across from them. So, I went over and knocked. A couple of weird questions later allowed me entrance to what would be my bedroom."

"And…?" Penny prompted when he seemed to relive his experience in his mind, instead of telling her.

"On one wall was written in, what I hope was just red paint, the message 'Die Sheldon, Die.'" Leonard shuddered. "And this Sheldon, upon seeing that, remarked that I might want to repaint."

"Oh My God," Penny said, laughing at the story. "Please tell me that's it. That that was enough to get you to run the hell away, like that first guy told you to do."

"Well, yeah! I wasn't going to stay with someone who's… um…"

"A whack-a-doodle?" Penny tried to help him.

He chuckled. "I guess that's a fitting description." He shook his head. "Anyway, I saw the ad for this place and I called. Mr. Underhill did seem to try and talk me out of it, but I was desperate to find a place and told him I didn't mind the frequent late parties with loud music."

Penny frowned. "He told you that?"

Leonard nodded. "I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I really had no other option."

"Oh, Leonard…" Penny stood up and walked over to give him a hug. "I'm pretty sure he only said that to keep the apartment available for some girl." She felt his arms releasing her and she realized a friendly hug shouldn't last this long anyway and released him as well. "Okay, I'm exhausted from moving stuff in, so I'm going to get some sleep. See you in the morning, Leonard."

"Yeah, I'm tired, too. Sleep tight, Penny."

"Thanks," she said, walking over to the bedroom door.

"Funny expression, sleep tight. It refers to the early construction of beds which featured a mattress suspended on interlocking ropes which would occasionally…"

Penny had just stared at him as he began to unexpectedly explain the origins of the saying, which caused him to break off his explanation.

"Um, yeah, so… Sleep tight," he said once more, clearly embarrassed.

# # #

After she had changed into her sleep attire, she opened the door to the living area to inform Leonard he could use the bathroom if he needed to. When she found him holding his still flat air mattress under the lamp, she instead asked him "what's wrong?"

"Oh. Um… it looks like my air mattress has some damage," Leonard responded, briefly holding it in her direction.

Unable to see anything from that distance, she moved closer. The two cuts on the side weren't very long, but she could see another one on the bottom, almost along the entire length. "Oh, man, no way we can fix that."

"Yeah, I guess I'll have to sleep on the floor."

"Ew," Penny said, not liking the sound of that. Especially considering neither had had anything to clean the floor, something that it desperately needed, based on its appearance. "Listen, my bed is big enough for both of us."

Leonard looked at her as if she'd grown another head. "Um… you-you want the two of us to share a bed?"

Penny nodded. "No funny business, I promise," she said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on Leonard. "Relax, Sweetie," she said, grabbing his hand to calm him down, before he would just spiral. "There's no reason two adults can not share a bed and sleep in it."

It took her a few minutes to persuade him that sharing her bed was much preferred over the floor, which honestly didn't look clean at all. It wasn't until he moved into the bathroom that Penny had her moment of uncertainty.

This was kind of odd, really. A guy she'd met less than eight hours ago, was going to be sleeping next to her the entire night, without sex preceding it. That was definitely new. Hell, to be honest, how often had she shared a bed with a guy for an entire night? None, was the right answer.

And what if Leonard's behavior had been just an act, hoping to get in bed with her and try and persuade her to have sex with him? How did the air mattress get cut? She shook her head. That was not fair of her, to assume he'd be like that.

Besides, it wasn't very likely he'd have put up such a strong objection to her suggestion. No. Despite only knowing him for a few hours, she was fairly certain Leonard was not the type of man to do that. She shed her robe and removed her socks.

Deciding it would give a bad impression if she'd just left it on the floor, she got off the bed and first dropped her socks in the hamper in the corner of her bedroom. The bathroom door opened as she moved toward her bedroom door on the opposite side.

She hung her robe on the left-most hook and said, "you can hang your robe next to mine." She turned around and noticed Leonard was looking anywhere but at her, his face red. Of course, Penny thought. These shorts do kind of accentuate my bum.

She almost laughed at herself. How could she possibly have thought he'd be the type of guy to try and get her to sleep with him? But she was oddly happy he had at least noticed her and, judging by the redness on his features, found her attractive.

Nonetheless, she quickly made it over to the bed and got herself under the covers. The realization he found her attractive was a little arousing and her tank top would definitely allow Leonard to notice that. Great job promising him there'd be no funny business.

# # #

Penny looked around the apartment, sadness washing over her. It felt so empty, now. Sharing it with Leonard had been the most wonderful thing she'd ever experienced, but today that had come to an end.

She glanced to the bedroom, remembering that first night sleeping together. She'd kept her promise; there had been no funny business. Although the next morning had found her cuddled up close to Leonard, who'd inadvertently woken her up as he tried to extract himself, afraid she'd be mad at him if she woke up and found herself in that position.

Still half asleep, she'd objected to his moving with a mumbled "just a few more minutes" and tightening her hold on him. Only when she'd fully woken up had she realized she had actually been lying half on top of him, her chest firmly pressed against him.

He had started to apologize, but she had cut him off, saying she was the one who needed to apologize for trapping him under her. In the end, they'd agreed neither had been at fault. It had been interesting, though, to find herself so well-rested.

That next day had been spent getting cleaning supplies, cleaning the entire apartment thoroughly, and getting some much needed furniture. Leonard had cooked for the both of them, while she'd taken a bath. It hadn't been until it was time to sleep that either of them remembered the state of Leonard's air mattress, resulting in another night sharing her bed.

She smiled now; they'd never seemed to have had the opportunity to fix that air mattress, or even get a new one. Not that she had minded, and Leonard had not complained, either.

Of course she had known their time together in this apartment would come to an end. Both of them had. But now that the time had arrived, it turned out to be much harder than she anticipated. They'd had a great time together, short as it had been.

"Okay, that's all," Leonard said, his arms wrapping around her waist, placing his head next to her on her shoulder.

She leaned back again him and sighed. "I'm really gonna miss this place."

Leonard hummed. "Yeah, me too." After a minute or so, he continued. "A lot of happy memories were created here."

Penny smiled and nodded. "I'm really happy that creepy manager brought us together."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't sent him a thank you note."

"Hell no," Penny agreed. "I hope to never have to see him or speak to him again." She couldn't suppress the shudder at the thought of having to have lived next to him. Especially after Leonard had found two miniature camera's in the bedroom and another in bathroom.

Katie had been livid when she and Leonard had brought that to her attention. Triggered by their find, she'd requested all tenants to check for camera's. Every apartment had them, apparently. Leonard had pointed out to Penny they were all hardwired, so there was no way Underhill had seen her take a shower.

That was a lucky thing for Penny, but the other tenants were not so lucky. They could reasonably assume he had recordings of them. So far, at least none of them had surfaced on the Internet, but Katie supported her tenants in a lawsuit against her former employee.

"Are you ready?"

Leonard's question pulled her out of the thoughts of Undercreep. She turned around and placed her arms on Leonard's shoulders, locking her hands behind his neck as she moved in to kiss her boyfriend. "Yeah," she said once the kiss came to an end. "Let's make some more wonderful memories in our new place."

Hand in hand they walked out of the building.