Author's Note: Wow! You guys are amazing; thank you so much for all the positive feedback. I never expected this little idea of mine to take off in the slightest. I'm sincerely flattered and hope you all keep reading and reviewing. It's an amazing feeling seeing all of the responses.

On a technical note, I'm sorry it was unclear whether or not Penny and Leonard were in fact a couple. I hope this chapter clears that up. Also, I'm not sure how much longer I can make these chapters this long...of course, waking up to 15 reviews is a pretty good source of inspiration. Just saying : )

***

Penny turned her pillow over but found the other side hadn't dried yet either. This started up a fresh round of tears and she punched the pillow heatedly, letting out a cough of surprise when feathers sprayed out from a burst seam and showered over her bed and floor. Dropping flat to the mattress with a little sob of exasperation, she stared at the shadows on her ceiling cast by passing cars and counted the number of evil monsters she could make of the ambiguous shapes. She was reliving her terror of the Boogey Man when she heard a soft sound in the living room of her apartment and rose, creeping to the door of her bedroom. Opening it a crack, she bit back a sniffle and peered out, squinting in the darkness.

A familiar, lanky figure was sitting on her sofa, his hands folded in his lap. The train-wreck had been tidied. He was quiet with exertion and anxiety. He wiped a hand over his mouth and bent his face into his hands, rocking back and forth a short moment before standing, rearranging the pillow he'd displaced by sitting in Penny's spot, and walked toward the door leading into the hallway. Pausing, he glanced back at the dishes he'd scrubbed, the clothes he'd folded and placed in her laundry basket, and the magazines he'd arranged by title and date. She would notice, perhaps even be miffed at the intrusion. She might yell at him for both this and the harsh words he'd hurled at her hours earlier. Or, and he was praying on this sliver of a chance, she'd realize it was how he apologized when he didn't have the words to express his regret.

She waited for him to turn the lock from outside her apartment with the spare key she'd given to them for emergencies and scampered into the living room, looking around the spic-and-span surfaces endlessly, relief flooding through her veins. She sat, hugging the pillow he'd rumpled by resting after his frantic cleaning and realized he hadn't been wearing his pajamas. She wondered if he'd just gotten back from whatever late-night excursion he'd been on. It was well past two in the morning, meaning he had not only willingly disrupted his sleep schedule, but he'd then extended it further to creep into her apartment and clean. This time it wasn't his mind twitching at the thought of the disarray (or, as he'd call it, entropy) in her apartment. He'd given her something, the only thing he could think of.

"Oh, Sweetie," she ran her fingers over the edge of the stacked magazines and noticed he'd slipped a business card for a finance manager where the latest issue of People had been opened. She'd been ignoring all the cards lately, wanting to get her life on track by her own volition, but it was hard. Weakness overcame her will to be responsible and she bought shoes, hats, purses, snackfood, and rum to soothe herself, remind herself she wasn't a total failure. And the men across the hall were kind, generous, and, when convenient, selfless. Everything she tried to be.

Lowering her chin to the pillow, she inhaled, found nothing, and curled on the couch, shivering, until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

When she awoke over an hour after the boys had presumably left for work, she opened her door to tack a note to their door warning them she was going to need someone to pick up some essentials for lasagna night since she'd be at work until just before dinner and nearly tripped on a small foam shape wedged against the door jamb.

She picked it up. It was one of those stress relieving balls to squeeze when hands wanted to clench into fists and teeth wanted to grind. The shape was that of a gray, wrinkled brain, and written in carefully divided portions, were short phrases.

Verbal communication

Calculus

Theoretical Physics

Pride/Hubris

The first four portions made her smile. They were large, taking up most of the fist-sized lump of porous foam, outlined with black Sharpie. On the sides, in smaller sections filled in with a fine-tipped permanent marker, he'd written more.

Body language

Emotion

Humility

Self-expression

Mandarin

In the smallest section, hardly legible without holding the thing an inch from her nose, between Pride/Hubris and Humility, she managed to read on.

Sympathy/Self-awareness

The headache of crying herself asleep throbbed anew and she scrunched the brain into a tightly wound ball before releasing it, watching it reform itself, a representation of Sheldon's brain and his limited understanding of himself as a human interacting with other humans.

Penny called into work and found a heart-shaped pillow Kurt had won for her at a carnival a few years ago. She tore the lace trim from the sides, neatly cut the frayed edges with scissors, and took a black marker to it, dividing it into various sized portions, hardly hearing herself humming as she considered the allocation of herself she was proclaiming.

In the largest five sections, she wrote the obvious.

Family

Independence

Common Sense

Compassion

Stubbornness

In the remaining five spaces, she faltered and found herself writing little known facts about herself. What she missed, what she believed about herself, what she hated but knew to be true.

My dog Kiki (who died when she was seven)

Insecurity (it ate up a lot of her emotional well-being, as much as she hated to say it)

The Midwest (she resented being told she represented the homely stereotype of an entire region, but would never admit the odd pride she felt when pegged as a native Nebraskan)

Halo Night (where this had come from she didn't bother to explore)

And finally, her fingers tired from carving the ink into the soft, flexible fibers covering the front of the heart-shaped pillow, she found an untouched spot, about the same size as the five largest, and carefully scratched at the fibers until they were darker than the others.

Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard

Before she could think about it a second longer, she tucked the thing under her arm, grabbed her spare key to their apartment, and marched across, opening their door and carefully situating the soft shape in Sheldon's spot. Sighing, she looked around the tidy interior and locked the door behind herself as she let herself out.

***

Sheldon had feigned interest in a textbook on the way to work that morning, not wanting Leonard to poke into his brain, which was addled enough. He was nearing frustration; until he'd found himself quite unable to fall asleep the night before, he'd been pleasantly curious about his predicament. Now he was bordering on infuriated trying to figure out why he was able to relax when he thought about the fact he'd broken his routine, but not when he considered the risk of it happening again. The lasagna tonight wouldn't kill him, if Penny decided to come by at all. He hoped sincerely she understood what he was meekly admitting.

He imagined a scenario as Leonard passed Euclid and turned the radio on, enjoying the silence despite the oddity of it all. He imagined sitting with Penny in her apartment and telling her he was sorry yet again. He apologized for his idiocy when it came to social matters. He apologized for making her cry, for belittling her, for always pointing out her inferior intellect when she was sometimes painfully aware of her meaningless deficiencies. He imagined himself looking at his knees, muttering something about he was working on it, but he couldn't be bothered to remember anything useful.

Based on her prior reactions to his mistakes, she would respond in one of two ways. She would either force him from her apartment and slam her door, or kiss him again. He had to say he didn't particularly mind either outcome. A chance to spar with her was always fun, and the kissing wasn't so terrible either. The itch to rinse out his mouth or shove her away always faded in the first few seconds. The jolt that had shot through his stomach at her innocent peck the night before had made his palms itch and he'd briefly wondered if he was allergic to something about the situation. Curious.

Leonard turned off the radio. "How was it?"

"How was what?" He looked out of the book, dizzy from pretending to read in the car.

"You kissed my girlfriend, Sheldon." Leonard gave him an amused smile. "Or did you already forget?"

Sheldon looked out the window. "I would hardly say I kissed her."

"And you just sat there and let it happen? Or did you, you know?" Leonard puckered his lips ever so slightly, grinning as Sheldon's eyes slithered to the slight physiological change. He copied, trying to remember what he'd done in response. The only thing that came to mind was the ache that had stirred him when he felt her start to lean away. He'd followed her, hunched to meet her lips, and kept a polite proximity to her, giving her plenty of room to dart away if she wanted. She hadn't right away.

"I don't remember." Sheldon finally replied stiffly. "And anyway, it's not important."

"The hell it isn't! She was your first." Leonard bit back a snigger. "You always remember your first."

"You know," Sheldon pretended he wasn't a tiny bit embarrassed, "I was reading last night that a man in your position would usually react to such a thing with anger, even fisticuffs."

His smile finally falling a little, Leonard made a hard right turn. "That would imply I'm threatened by you."

"I suppose that would have to be the scenario. And since I'm obviously not suited to her needs, that wouldn't be a problem." Satisfied with the answer, though perplexed why his stomach had turned, Sheldon looked out his window again and wondered if he'd pushed it when he had that extra glass of warm milk after returning from Penny's apartment the night before. Something had been disrupted, that much was certain.

Leonard's hands tightened on the wheel and he wrinkled his nose. If it had been Raj or Howard who'd been kissed, he might have been mad at her, or her and her victim. But it was Sheldon. Leonard could hardly believe it, but he actually was proud of his roommate, and happy he had made even this tiny step forward. He was happy for both of them, the more he thought about it, though the implications of that thought made him dizzy. Penny could only feel pride at her ability to break through Sheldon's cool exterior and find the part of him rattled by emotion. When they fought, it was a battle of the wills. Last night, Sheldon had inserted his emotions into his entanglement with her, and she'd been upset by it. What was she doing to him? Other than disappointment, sadness, and the occasional irritation, Sheldon rarely conveyed much of anything. With her, he was scared, happy, angry, nostalgic...

"You missed the driveway," Sheldon pointed out unnecessarily.

Leonard put on his blinker and considered an illegal U-turn, but he didn't have the heart. If Penny forgave him, Leonard would be solely responsible for Sheldon's bad day.

***

Leonard read Penny's note on the door and handed it off to Sheldon while he unlocked the apartment. Upon entering, he dropped his keys in the bowl, tossed his jacket to the nearest chair, and paused, staring at the obnoxious red heart-shaped pillow in Sheldon's spot. He slid his eyes over to Sheldon suspiciously, knowing Penny was the only person who could have possibly put it inside without breaking the lock. She was not, historically, one to back down from a fight with Sheldon. She knew he would gloat forever and couldn't bear the thought of being more fodder for his ego. So, perhaps she was trying to show she was the bigger person by apologizing for her intrusion into his personal space. Or, more likely, she was taunting him by sending him a love trinket. Neither possibility alarmed Leonard personally, but he was curious and apprehensive to see what Sheldon would say when he saw it.

Following routine, Sheldon deposited his bag and his jacket in his room before returning to the living room, noticing Leonard hadn't moved from his position near the door and glanced around, wondering if he'd missed something, his eyes settling on Penny's gift. Walking over cautiously, he picked up the cheap novelty and stared adamantly at the letters she'd meticulously scraped into the fabric, leaking black into the very core of the pillow. It smelled of Penny and her apartment, of Sharpies, and of tears. He lifted it, not understanding at first how he should interpret the printed letters until his eyes fell on his name, listed first.

Without a word to Leonard, he took the pillow into his room and hesitated before setting it gently in the center of the pillows neatly stacked at the head of the bed. He smoothed an errant wrinkle and stared a moment at the darkness of his sleeping quarters before turning around and running directly into Leonard's suspicious glare.

"What was that, Sheldon?"

Collecting his hands behind his back, Sheldon cleared his throat. "This morning, I apologized to Penny. I believe she is letting me know I'm officially forgiven."

Lifting his eyebrows, Leonard coughed out a laugh. "Just like that?" He couldn't imagine what Sheldon would have said. He couldn't imagine the two of them ignoring the fact he'd snarled and snapped at her, made her feel worthless, and then capped it all off by saying he didn't believe a word of it and that was precisely the reason for his diatribe.

Sheldon's voice shook as he explained, "It's extremely difficult for me to admit I was not in control of myself last night. I didn't mean much of what I said and...and I actually felt a little guilty. It's the thought that counts, isn't that the expression?"

"Still, Sheldon..." Leonard trailed off and cleared his throat. "Do you remember what you told her?"

Sheldon turned to avoid the confrontation, believing he was forgiven. There was no need to rehash everything.

"That she puts herself on display and enjoys the heartache she feels after all those idiots she dates dump her?"

"I remember, Leonard." Sheldon snapped, surprising himself with the hostility in his voice. "It has nothing to do with your continued attempts to have steady intercourse with her. Despite your belief your feelings and opinions on things are pertinent to everyone else's lives, this is one case where I can assure you it would be prudent to butt out."

Leonard's mouth moved in surprise for a few long seconds before he frowned and asked quietly, "The last thing you said..."

"Leonard, I really don't want to cover it all again. I remember." He waited, his chest heaving, wondering what little nugget of gold his roommate had found this time. Secretly, he was anxiously awaiting his friend's observation, knowing he didn't have the wherewithal to figure out his social faux-pas this time.

Ignoring Sheldon, Leonard cleared his throat again and croaked out, "You said she deserved better than to be treated like that. It was hard to pick out among all the scathing remarks about her self-objectification, mind you, but you did it again. You slipped in a backwards compliment."

He didn't see the importance of such a trivial twist of words. Swallowing softly, he lifted an eyebrow. "And?"

"And she gave you a stuffed heart." Leonard's voice was small. "And she kissed you."

His heart pounded involuntarily at his secret being divulged, but he managed to keep a relatively cool face, squeezing his fingers together behind his back. "And?" he prompted again, borderline irritated.

"And I think she might..." Leonard threw his hands in the air. "You're clueless, you know that? One of these days someone is going to hit you upside the head with a centrifuge and tell you she loves you!"

"Two things: one, I'm not sure why that'd be necessary. I do have the capacity to listen to what others are saying. I'm getting better at the interpretation part. Two," he ignored the roll of Leonard's eyes, "why would a woman strike me and tell me she cares for me?"

"Why does Penny force you to submit to lasagna night when you desperately want cashew chicken and then deliver a stuffed heart to our apartment?" Leonard half-shouted, wringing his hands, pulling on the strings of his hood. "This is vital, Sheldon, so listen." He waited for Sheldon's decidedly unsettled looking blue eyes to settle on his face and took a deep breath. "You have to be careful you're not being unfair to her, Sheldon. Don't hurt her feelings. Somehow, and I don't have any idea how, I think you've gotten her to...like you."

Leonard could see the gears of Sheldon's brilliant mind turning painfully, dissecting her posture, motions, and dialogue over the past week. While more irritating and intrusive than usual, she was no different. And, he conceded, he didn't find her irritating. It was a curious thing, but he didn't find her disruptions frustrating, really. He certainly didn't find them endearing, either. He wasn't indifferent. His mind swirled trying to settle on what exactly he did feel, but he couldn't find a word for it.

"Sheldon, say something, c'mon!" Leonard's exasperation was plain. He watched Sheldon, in all his awkward social idiocy, snap out of a daze and fix Leonard with a peculiar stare.

He took a deep, quick breath. "You think Penny has started to view me as a potential romantic suitor?"

Leonard exhaled loudly, saying simultaneously, "Yes."

"And that her acceptance of my apology is evidence of this?"

Another breathless response, "Yes."

Sheldon's eyebrows lifted. "Interesting."

"No, not interesting, Sheldon!" Leonard practically screeched. "She is not some experiment you can toy with! This is Penny we're talking about! She's our friend, she's our neighbor!"

"Well, I'm sorry Leonard, but the situation still seems to be interesting!" Sheldon defended, opening the fridge and finding a bottle of water. "It didn't occur to me. I find the--"

"Sheldon, Penny likes you." Leonard repeated, noticing this time that the lanky frame hovering over the kitchen island stuttered, lost fuel, and stalled. He mouthed uselessly, still without expression, and then looked at the bottle in front of him, pretending to read the small print on the label.

Minutes passed and he still had nothing to say. Leonard didn't budge and Sheldon was too afraid of ruthless pursuit if he tried to flee. His instant desire was to go either to his room and feign tiredness or ask for a ride to the comic book store. Neither seemed viable. So, after finishing his water and tossing the bottle into the recyclables bin, he turned, startled to find Leonard had marched up to him.

"You're...you're a real prick! You know that?"

Sheldon's eyes widened. "What now?"

"You'd be lucky to have her and you're pretending you don't even care! You're no different than those so-called 'meatheads' she dates!" Leonard inhaled wildly. "They think they're better than emotions, too, Sheldon. The terminal causality is all that separates you from the apes."

He felt a little weak. He didn't want to believe Leonard had a point, that he might even be right, but when he tried to question how he felt, his brain dismissed the notion, finding it irrelevant. Leonard stomped off and came back, voice squeaky as he read out their four names from the pillow he'd snatched from Sheldon's bed.

"Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard. She put your name first. She put 'Halo' night on here, Sheldon. She...she..."

"You'll have to excuse me if I find this a little less than convincing, Leonard." He didn't wait for the short, flustered man to complain about not getting a chance to finish blustering. "I do not fulfill her established 'type.' She'd be an idiot for choosing me as a potential mate, and she is not an idiot."

Leonard stabbed his finger under Sheldon's nose, quivering. "There."

"What there?" Sheldon swatted his hand away. "What are you talking about?"

"You just wait." Leonard croaked, backing down the hall with the pillow in hand, sounding watery. "Let me know when she gets here to cook."

Opening his mouth to affirm he would follow Leonard's wishes, Sheldon gave a start when his roommate's door slammed shut. He had half a mind to walk over and knock, to ask for his pillow back, but found an unusual sore spot in his stomach and he let Leonard keep it for the time being. There were more important things than his unusual new attachment to the cheap toy.

***

She knocked and waited for them to answer it for a change. Sheldon stood to let her in, looking backwards at Howard and Raj, who were huddled around Sheldon's laptop, testing out some new feature he'd downloaded recently as an addition to the Google Earth program. Just before he got to the door, which was unlocked, Leonard grabbed his arm and spun him around.

"God help me, I have no idea why I'm doing this, but here." He thrust a three-by-five card with his exceedingly messy scrawl on both sides, and shoved Sheldon toward the couch. Gripping the card, Sheldon sent a frown at Leonard, who then opened the door and smiled winningly, painfully, at Penny.

"Hey! Glad you decided to come over." He held the door and she waddled in with arms full of groceries.

She scoffed. "Please, don't think for a minute I'd renege on you guys just because Sheldon and I had a little misunderstanding."

Raj leaned and whispered in Howard's ear. Howard snorted. "Lucky for us she doesn't hold grudges, you mean."

Scowling, Penny put the two bags of groceries on the island and unloaded a pile of ingredients, biting her lip. Sheldon was reading some sort of notecard to himself, lips moving softly, but not enough to give her a clue. She had squinted one eye and started toward him when Leonard cut her off with a nervous smile. "Have a minute?"

Her heart sank. She knew this had been coming. He had been able to shrug off her confession from before, and she'd seen it bugging him ever so slightly that Sheldon was acting differently to some degree, but still. She expected him to sort of let it happen until she shook her head and told him it was over. Forever.

He closed his bedroom door behind her and stood, chin in hand. He smiled at her once more and she winced.

"First let me say I'm surprisingly not mad. A little disappointed, but not mad." He started to pace, but stopped, sitting on the end of his bed with a loud sigh. "I thought I'd be angrier. But, let's face it, I'm not."

"Leonard...what?" She sat next to him heavily and gripped his arm. "Sweetie, what are you talking about?"

"You and I," he replied slowly. "It's not you, it's not me. Just...don't worry about it."

She frowned lightly and felt the guilt start to bubble up. "It's because I kissed Sheldon?"

"No, no. I would have said something already." He waved her off, wondering how much he could say without absolutely destroying Sheldon's already fragile social life. "Do you understand? I'm not mad."

"Well, I assumed that would be because it's Sheldon." She smiled prettily at him, fluttering her eyelashes. "Right?"

He shook his head, tired and too calm for his own good. "No, Penny. I realized...I don't really want you. I thought I did, and I did for a while, but...not anymore."

She searched through her gut to find the heartache that usually settled low, poisoning her whole body, but it wasn't there. She felt a little twinge of guilt, sadness, and peace. It was an odd combination, and then her body flushed, thinking of Sheldon and his unwitting part in all this.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I kissed him." She looked at her feet.

Leonard laughed. "Aw, no you're not. You'll be able to hold it over his head you were his first forever. That's a long time, even for Mr. Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-the-Universe-with-My-Mind."

She giggled. "That's Dr. Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-the-Universe-with-My-Mind."

"My apologies," Leonard laughed softly and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "And, that aside, I don't think you're sorry or need to be. I've done...much worse."

She hugged his arm a little tighter and kissed his cheek. "For what it's worth, Leonard, you're an amazing guy. Any girl should be happy to have you."

"I think we're quickly figuring out there are always a handful you'll never win." He lifted his eyebrows and smiled winningly at her, startling her with his genuine warmth. "Sometimes she's meant for someone else. I'm not ready to buy a cat yet."

"Good!" She stood and held her hand out. "Help me screw up dinner!"

He hung back a moment and shuffled his feet before grabbing Sheldon's pillow and holding it out to her. "Will you put it back in his room for me?"

She took the pillow and smiled thinly, looking caught, guilty again. "He gave me...a little brain."

"A brain?"

"Left it outside my door. One of those stress-relieving things, but it was a brain. And he...did something like this. I thought the contrast would be poetic, I guess." She laughed awkwardly and looked at her handiwork. "His tiniest section was 'self-awareness.' Mine's Kiki. She died when I was still in elementary school."

Leonard nodded and cleared his throat. "He's lucky someone like you is here to understand him, Penny. Lord knows sometimes I don't get him."

"No one does, but I'm working on it." She hugged the pillow and sent him a glittering look. "He doesn't know it, but he's making progress."

"Go touch the crap out of his food." Leonard winked and she laughed, rushing into Sheldon's room to deposit the pillow on his bed and get to work. In the five extra seconds he had, Leonard nearly sprinted into the living room in time to see Sheldon tuck the card into his back pocket and sit back, staring at his whiteboard with a slight frown.

The note card in Sheldon's pocket was burning a hole in his forehead. He felt like he couldn't get the words from his mind. They were the most important social cues he felt he'd ever been given. It was imperative he remember them. He couldn't say why, but he knew he absolutely could not break Leonard's rules.

Do not mention the fact I have my suspicions she likes you. Under no circumstances should you attempt to trick her into admitting such. Just ignore it for now. Trust me.

If, for any reason, you have to refer to sexual intercourse in front of Penny, do not refer to it as 'coitus,' 'intercourse,' 'procreation,' or 'mating.' Acceptable terms include 'love-making' or 'sex.'

Attempt direct compliments occasionally. Instead of implying she has learned to correct some previous bad behavior, simply state you enjoy the (new) behavior. If you don't like a change, ignore it until the urge to voice this needless observation fades.

Throw her a bone now and then, but still hold on to whatever it is that makes you Sheldon. Do not try to gain additional forgiveness by pretending to be sweet or caring. She'll notice and you'll scare her.

Trust her.

The last one befuddled him, but the rest seemed like sage advice. He'd walked over to the whiteboard at some point and started to scribbled on the white space he'd erased in the middle. For a moment he panicked, wondering why he'd erased some of his work. In its place he'd written a formula that made very little sense to him scientifically.

R=P(k+h)-L

-----------

i(I+S)

Penny smiled at him as she passed through the kitchen and threw open the fridge, taking out a bottle of water. The look on her face made him realize Leonard had just called it quits. Somehow, she was glowing a little bit. She seemed to be relieved and bouncy. Leonard, too, was relaxed but a little more down-trodden than Penny. Curious. He erased the "-L" from the equation.

His befuddlement only doubled its efforts when he felt a rush of warm and tugged on the collar of his shirt and pulled his sleeves a little further up on his arms. He looked at the floor, unable to help himself from wondering what exactly he was thinking when he let himself get worked up over this meaningless moment in their apartment.

Penny clapped her hands once, jarring everyone from their respective reveries. "Anyone know how to make lasagna?"

***

Penny's eyes opened exactly fifteen seconds before her alarm went off. She planned to hit the snooze button, but when the jarring sound interrupted her mindless vigil, she simply turned it off, rolled to her feet, stuck her feet in the slippers her mother had sent her this last Christmas. She waited for the coffee to brew, poured herself a cup, didn't bother checking if she had any milk before opening her door and starting across the hall. She knocked twice, pushed open the door, and entered, waving a bleary hello to Leonard and Sheldon, both of whom were dressed and ready to start their days.

"Pull the morning shift?" Leonard asked, smiling as she nodded and accepted the milk from Sheldon. He frowned lightly as she added a touch more than usual and put it on the island, collapsing across her arms tiredly. She groaned.

"I take it you didn't sleep well," Sheldon commented, reaching over her for his bowl of oatmeal. She looked up at him, not in the mood for his misguided attempts at small talk.

"Best sleep of my life. So good it didn't want to let go."

Leonard shot her a wry grin. "What's on the agenda for the day, Penny?"

She took the first few sips of her coffee first, welcoming the first surge of adrenaline she'd feel. "Morning shift at the Cheesecake Factory, then over to Yvette's to catch up." She looked up at the ceiling and pressed her lips into a thin line. "Let's see, what's the Monday routine?"

Sheldon opened his mouth to reply but felt the sleight at the last moment and kept the contempt from his voice as he helplessly reported all the information to her. She nodded as if to say, "Just as I expected." Sitting up suddenly, she fixed Leonard with a stare. "Hey, after I'm done at Yvette's do you want to bring the guys to the theater over on the west stretch? There's a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I'm itching to go."

Sheldon started to shake his head, but Leonard had already agreed to go, pulling out his cell phone to alert Raj and Howard of their plans. Within minutes Penny had invited several of her friends as well. Sheldon felt very put-out for a moment, but started to enjoy the idea of an evening shut in the apartment.

He felt her looking at him before he could have known she was waiting for his response. Without looking at her, he shook his head. "I'm not interested in whatever it is you're going to see."

She frowned. "You have no idea what it's about."

"Meaning it can't be that good," he quipped, pushing himself away from the island to rinse out his bowl.

She followed him to the sink, stomping silently in her padded slippers. "You haven't heard anything good about Gone With the Wind either, but it's a classic. This is a cult classic, Sheldon. Widen your horizons a little. What if the...the...catalyst to your next big break is waiting in some stupid theater across town? You might see Tim Curry's fishnets and think to yourself, 'Gee, that reminds me of this Algonquin or algorithm or whatever the frack it is.'"

"I should think I wouldn't mix up a Native American tribe and the rules governing math and physics," Sheldon snorted and imagined filling out graphs using smoke signals. His smile dropped when Penny wedged herself between the sink and his body, folding her arms.

"Oh no, Miss Thing, don't think you can strong-arm me into this ridiculous joyride!"

She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, but the term 'joyride' would indicate fun and excitement. Who'd invite Dr. Doom to an evening of pleasant camaraderie?"

Sheldon startled her with an appreciative look. "Ooh, Penny, I'm impressed with your vocabulary!" He very nearly added the second part, but, remembering the notecard in the back pocket of his pants, he buttoned his lip and swept around her, looking over his shoulder. "I'm still not going."

"Well, good! I didn't want you to!" Penny retorted and winced—an expression Leonard didn't miss. He almost had to bite his knuckle to hide his amusement. Penny, although extremely witty at times, could easily get worked up trying to stay toe-to-toe with Sheldon.

Sheldon paused in front of his laptop and got a thoughtful look on his face. Looking up briefly, he shook his head and laughed gently. "Funny, I thought for a minute I detected a note of sarcasm or distress in your voice. I suppose I'm hearing things. It's not, as far as I can tell, one of my 'on days,' so to speak."

Penny sent Leonard a look, one she hated using, but one she knew got results. It was a look begging him to reason with the skinny idiot and get him to make a concession. When Leonard failed, she always had his mother to call, though she didn't see Mrs. Cooper calling to nag her son into seeing a sex-themed cult movie at midnight on a Monday.

Sighing, Leonard walked over to Sheldon and fixed him with a pointed glare, folding his arms while Sheldon, oblivious, packed the last of his things into his messenger bag. Without looking up, Sheldon asked, "Yes?"

"C'mon, Sheldon. It'll be good for you to get out of the apartment tonight."

He made a small noise of exasperation. "In what way? You make all these claims and do nothing to back them up! By your logic, it'd be good for me to lie down in the middle of Euclid Avenue and pretend I'm a speed bump!"

"Oh, Sweetie, no one would complain if that's what you wanted to do," Penny interjected with a shit-eating grin.

Leveling a cool glare at her, he briefly lifted his hands to his temples and frowned extra hard and Penny, giggling, felt her face flush a little. She loved it when she got under his skin and she knew he loved letting her crawl in there occasionally.

"Jokes about my untimely demise aside, I'm still not going to this movie tonight. I'm working on some important research. Monopoles may be out, but there's something to be said about, oh, I dunno, everything else in the universe." He straightened his shoulders and looked at Penny pointedly. "Have fun!" he urged sarcastically and was halfway through taking a breath to add Bazinga! when Penny rolled her eyes and took her coffee to the door. She leaned, smiling sweetly at Leonard.

"Goodbye, Leonard. I'll see you tonight. I hope you have a great day at work." She rotated, looking at the other roommate. "Sheldon, I hope you get in a horrible laboratory accident."

"Duly noted," he snapped back and watched as she smiled widely and closed the door on her way out.

Leonard shuddered, gazing back at Sheldon and his quirked eyebrow. Sensing the silent question, he simply shrugged. "I was just picturing the evil geniuses you and Penny would have."

Sheldon's jaw dropped open in indignation and irritation, but he had no time to retort as Leonard sniggered and picked up his keys. "C'mon, we're going to be late."

It struck both of them as they exited the apartment how strange it was to hear Leonard urge Sheldon to hurry or else they'd be late. Sheldon said nothing and massaged his stomach all the way to the university, not once complaining when Leonard turned on the car radio.

***

He forced himself to eat something after his brain could take no more calculations and online computer matches of chess. His brilliant mind was bored, which was to be expected. What was not expected, however, was his inability to remedy the situation. Nothing appeared to work. He kept returning to his whiteboard and staring at the equation he'd written up. The desire to erase was strong, but he could not. It was a clever riddle hidden in plain sight. He chewed over a piece of buttered toast and stared. The time was 11:45 and he was convinced he should be turning in soon, but despite his boredom, he was not tired.

The door banged open and he dropped his toast, nearly choking on the unswallowed bits in his mouth, but when he turned to see who it was, he had no choice but to spit up the mouthful into his hand and look frantically for someplace to put it and wash his hands, quickly.

Penny put a hand on her hip, a snarl already on her lips. "Sheldon, shut up and get in the car now."

He didn't object, just threw the soggy mouthful of toast in the sink, rinsed his hands, and shrugged on his jacket, biting his tongue. Penny stormed over to her apartment and grabbed up her forgotten winter coat and a pair of gloves, glaring at him as he fidgeted in the hallway, looking everywhere but her.

If he thought he was fooling anyone with his aloof attitude, Penny mused, he was sorely mistaken. She was well-aware of his observational talents; her outfit had not gone unnoticed. But, as Yvette had reminded her while they caught up over Russian cuisine and French wine, one could not attend a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show without dressing up. So she'd put on traditional fishnet stockings, a garter, corset, and pumps. Yvette had painted her up like someone from a Vaudevill show and teased her hair into a frazzled nest, but it was so perfect for the evening. Her sprint from her car to the building and up the steps had been welcomed, if only to warm her up on the cold, winter night.

Hugging her coat closer to her body, she locked her door and seized Sheldon's elbow. "We're gonna be late, c'mon."

"Everyone keeps telling me I'm late today!" Sheldon panicked, trying to resist her insistent pulls but failing. "Slow down, with those shoes you're going to end up doing unplanned gymnastics and breaking your clavicle."

"And if you don't shut up, you're going to end up with a black eye. Or, worse," she tugged him harder, dropping down the steps with the confidence of a woman who knows how to work a good pair of shoes, "I'll knock you out and you'll wake up dressed like Rocky."

"I'm assuming he's the male lead," Sheldon mused.

"He's someone I think you'd find interesting at the very least. An experiment." She laughed at his offended expression as she led him to her car and unlocked the door. "Oh, I'm sorry, would you rather be the good doctor?"

"I don't like where this is going," he replied, sounding tired and wary.

At the theater, he had to concentrate on keeping his jaw clenched tightly, though the infrequent times someone truly managed to shock him, he could do nothing to control his involuntary exclamation of, "Oh good Lord!" He clung to Penny's arm as if she were his only lifeline while they weaved through the packed lobby of the building and into the nearly empty theater. Strutting to the middle row of seats, Penny held out a grand arm and grinned. Leonard, Howard, and Raj looked as uncomfortable as Sheldon felt, and so he rushed in toward them only to pause and glare around the interior suspiciously. He sat after a moment, but squirmed.

Penny leaned closed to where his head was and made a loud noise, something between a laugh and a bird's call. The reverberation was perfect—they had saved him the "acoustic sweet spot." He looked at her, an inexplicable gratitude in his eyes. Penny got the weirdest feeling he both loathed her and wanted to kiss her at the same time. The lights dimmed and dozens of scantily clad patrons started flooding in, including several of Penny's close friends. One of them, a sort of doughy man with a pierced eyebrow, was in a corset and heels as well. Sheldon bit his thumb to keep from saying anything rude about her friends.

Howard leaned over to Leonard and whispered, "By the end of the week, she'll have him balancing a beach ball on his nose and reciting the last five winners of 'America's Next Top Model.'"

"There's no shame in a little social experimentation," Leonard chuckled and settled low in his seat, risking a glance at Sheldon. From the way his jaw was tensing and relaxing, his Vulcan hearing hadn't failed him. Had Penny not handed him a container of popcorn, he might have tried to blow up both their heads. Instead he accepted her offer and silenced himself, watching with innate curiosity as the story unfolded.

He really had to stop letting Penny choose the movies.