Author's Note: Okay, so apparently I lied about this well of long chapters soon drying up. Then again, I did re-write this chapter about SEVENTY TIMES before I was pleased with it. Blargh. But I love you, beautiful readers! BONUS: I am officially done with the nonsense that is college for the semester, and, extra bonus, classes don't resume until mid-January. Like, we're talking January 23 or something crazy like that. So, literally I'll be going insane at my apartment for the next 6-7 weeks. I'll be a writing fiend.

Reviews welcome, of course. and noww, ladeez and gentlemenn! MOAR FIC!

***

Sheldon made an unscheduled trip to the laundry room, hoping to catch Leonard there, but unsure who he'd find loitering in the stuffy room at this hour of the evening. Pausing in the doorway, he observed Penny, her head bent unnaturally to the side, chatting animatedly with someone back home, sounding at both sympathetic but unbearably perky. He listened, knowing it wasn't proper social protocol to eavesdrop, but she usually put her conversations on hold with him, directing her full attention to him in case he chose her inattentiveness as a source of irritation.

"No, it's more like...I don't know, it's thorough." Penny laughed helplessly. "It's like that guy's experiment with the chicken eggs." She paused, listening to whoever it was on the other end chattering back. "Well, the computers at work are outdated, but it's not like we aren't exhausting our resources trying to get them updated. I'm telling you, it's like Aristotle's experiment in epigenesis." Sheldon's eyebrows shot up in amusement and he folded his arms, smiling gently. He waited patiently, watching her fold her scores of tiny shorts and tank tops, dropping them into her basket unceremoniously.

"Epigenesis? It's a competing idea. Instead of—look, it's not important. The point is, Aristotle took a ton of chicken eggs and cracked them open one a day for a bunch of days and noticed the baby chickens were growing every day, developing, not just getting bigger. I mean, they got bigger, obviously, but it was more than that." She opened up a second dryer and started to pull out jeans and skirts, kicking dryer-soft sheets into a pile to collect later. "We've been doing our own computer repair—my station has a Band-Aid holding together two hard drives and we're not sure which is the master or the slave."

Sheldon bit the back of his hand, hiding a grin from no one.

"Aunt Lisa, it's really not important. I've just been spending a lot of time with my neighbors—they're physicists. If I don't speak the occasional word of their language, I'm seriously just eye candy." Another pause, only this time Penny tilted her head and caught her phone before it clattered to the floor. "Not eye candy, they're not that bad or anything. Dr. Doom has turned into a sort of Dr. Lukewarm recently."

He could take no more, he entered, clearing his throat, and she spun, grinning at him wryly as she tilted the phone away from her mouth. "Speak of the devil! What do you need, Sweetie?"

"Where is Leonard?"

She shrugged, kicking the dryer door shut gently as she bent for her basket. "Not sure. He came in to throw his stuff in the dryer about ten minutes ago, but he had his coat on. I think he might have left."

Downtrodden, Sheldon nodded, but found himself quite unwilling to go back to their apartment and try to pick up where he left off on his most recent article. Looking at her shyly, as if she were the one looming, blocking the door, he cleared his throat, and lifted his eyebrows in question.

She covered the mouthpiece this time. "It's my aunt from Omaha. She just moved to Reno with her daughter. They might come to visit over Christmas."

He nodded, not finding the information particularly useful or enlightening, but he stored it away nevertheless. Then, after some deliberation, and seeing she was still waiting, paying him her full attention, he cleared his throat.

"You were commenting on the Inductivist method of science earlier?"

She looked at him blankly, a confused edge coming into her expressive eyebrows until the look of understanding washed over her rather suddenly. "Oh, yeah! Aristotle!"

He nodded, feeling his face getting warm. "There really is hope for you yet."

She looked at him warmly, propping her laundry basket on her hip as she grabbed his shoulder, phone still in hand, and smiled. "Aww, and you almost managed to compliment me without making me seem like an imbecile. Thanks, Sheldon."

"You're not an imbecile," he argued, turning to follow her as she effortlessly slipped past him and into the hall. "Penny, please!" His tone was both pleading and condescending, something only he seemed to be able to do.

She turned, shooting him a warning glance unrelated to his faux-pas, and put the phone back up to her ear. "Yeah, I'm back. Look, I've got some lines to rehearse for an audition tomorrow and my neighbor is on a man-hunt, so I'll have to get going soon. Put Abby on so I can say goodnight."

Sheldon watched her transform from a confident, friendly woman into something completely different. It was something he'd gotten to see a handful of times—it was something he was sure Leonard had never seen, despite his intimate times with her. Her eyes softened, her lips pouted a little, and her shoulders relaxed.

"Hi, Sweetie. I'm excited for you to come see me, too! Remember to put it on your list for Santa, okay? And tell your mom, too." Penny laughed. "I promise you Santa doesn't have a budget. You have to be a good girl, that's all! And if it doesn't work out this winter, I'll come see you at your new house, okay?" She nodded, sighing contentedly. "Of course I'll bring my swim suit. I can't wait to see your new pool!"

He knew without having to pry this time that she was talking to a child, and a young one at that. From the sound of it, the girl was still young without being incomprehensible over the phone, and had a very good relationship with her much older cousin. Curious, he followed her up the first flight of stairs at a respectable distance and paused, looking at her phone curiously.

"No, I'm still here. I have to go, though. My sister is calling. I'll tell her hello! Give your mom a big kiss for me, okay? Goodnight, Abby." She pressed another button, her voice totally different. "Well?"

After a few long seconds, Penny snorted. "Married? Figures. We have all the luck."

Sheldon cleared his throat and she shot him a dangerous look as she rounded the corner for the next flight of stairs.

She hung up this time, tucking her phone into her laundry basket, and looked over her shoulder at Sheldon, uninterested. "Why do you need to find Leonard? And why would I know where he is?"

"I thought he was doing laundry," Sheldon replied, his heart beating a little harder. "I followed through on my hypothesis with some experimentation."

"That's hardly an experiment—more like observation," Penny muttered derisively. "You'd have to put him in a situation similar to this and record--" she choked herself to a stop, her throat closing. It was one thing to occasionally bring up Spock or "Battlestar Galactica" with her co-workers when she rolled her eyes and told stories about her eclectic neighbors, but arguing with Sheldon Cooper on the Scientific Method? She shook her head briskly, trying to thrust the notion from her head.

He seemed happy enough with the turn of events though, smiling at her genuinely as he bounced up the steps beside her. "Very good."

"Are you going to give me a chocolate now?" she asked acidly, not understanding her sudden reaction. Seeing his bewildered expression, she managed to draw up a small amount of patience and paused, facing him fully, taking a slow, calming breath. "Sorry. I'm a little stressed right now. I have an important audition tomorrow."

He resumed following after her as she turned to continue her trek upstairs. "I understand—I myself used to get nervous giving my lectures in Germany when I was conducting initial research on string theory and--"

"No, Sheldon, it's not quite the same," she cut him off, loving him to death, but not loving his inane chatter. "Though I do appreciate the sentiment."

Oblivious, Sheldon continued, "The adage of picturing the crowd in their underwear never does work, does it? I always make it worse when I do that."

She tried to picture a frazzled Sheldon presenting, at eleven years old, to a crowd of adult physicists, in German, his squeaky voice even squeakier with youth. She sniggered to herself, helplessly imagining him as an unavoidably adorable child and looked back at him, loving the puzzled look on his face as he wondered helplessly what she found so amusing.

"But, one can and should believe in an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of variations of one's own person. Somewhere out there, I'm feasibly a rock star, or Batman." He smiled proudly, watching her face melt into a helpless laugh.

"But in none of these universes do you dance." She watched his expression slowly fall flat. "You're not the only one with a memory like a steel trap." Her face threatened to expose more of his insanity if he were to prod her, but today she didn't think he looked like he was in the mood to banter. Curious.

He jerked to attention when she resumed, for the millionth time, it seemed, heading up to her apartment. "Regardless, Penny, progress made in one universe is simply evidence that I have within me the capability of being somewhat different in another universe, and in that universe--"

"Sheldon, Sweetie, what exactly are you telling me?"

He blinked, coming to yet another stop, and frowned lightly to himself. "I'm not sure."

"Well, you're not one for 'chatting up' the neighbors, so what is it?" She put the laundry basket down and put her hands on her hips, eyebrows lifting. "Sheldon?"

It didn't feel easy today, the way they usually fell to sparring. Sheldon was getting a distinctly negative vibe from the whole ordeal, though he severely doubted he was adept at interpreting vibes. He waited a beat, looking down at his shoes, and Penny seemed to soften.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sheldon. Really." She hugged her elbows and pinched her eyes shut. "I don't mean to be awful to you. I just, I'm feeling a little out of it. Do you want to...I dunno, do something?"

He thought of it for a moment, musing aloud, "Leonard is leaving for a meeting with Dr. Stephanie soon."

"Meeting, or date?"

"I don't know, nor do I care," Sheldon reported back, scratching at his elbow nervously. "I don't have any plans. It's Thursday."

"I know. Well, it's 'Anything-Can-Happen Thursday.' Let's...I dunno, play cards or something. I could do with some human interaction," she muttered and rubbed her forehead. "I've been in my head all week."

"Isn't that where you usually are?" he questioned in what he hoped was a harmless voice.

She nodded, looking wearied by the world. "Yeah, but it's nice to get out and see what everyone else is up to. What should we play?"

"Two-player card games...I suggest we stick with something chance-related. My eidetic memory frequently upsets Leonard when we try to play games." He regarded her carefully. "Do you play chess? Boggle?"

"No the chess, and as far as Boggle, not the Klingon kind. But I'm mean at Hearts. Oh, if you're worried about the challenge, I could always whoop your ass at Halo." She smiled at him with a flash of her old teasing back in her eyes.

He twitched a little, not liking she was so aware of his failure, and nodded glumly. It would have to suffice. "That would work."

"All right, great. Let me just throw these in my apartment and we can go." She turned and this time they ascended the stairs in total silence; Penny felt that nagging fear in her stomach again, but when she lost her train of thought and almost missed the top step of their landing, Sheldon put a hand on her back and gave just the slightest of pushes, bringing her crashing back to earth.

She smiled back at him self-deprecatingly and disappeared in her apartment a moment to catch her breath. When she crossed the hall to 4A, he handed her a book and mentioned she could read it for an introduction to physics, if she wanted. She agreed, regretting the fact she'd never really bothered to learn anything about his or Leonard's work, and after skimming the first few pages, sat beside him on the couch and looked blankly at the video game controller waiting for her.

"You created an account for me on your X-Box Live?"

He nodded silently and picked up his controller. "You can begin a campaign and compete to build up your levels. If we ever have a tournament online, you'd be an invaluable member."

An unsolicited compliment that he appeared to believe genuinely. She nudged him with her shoulder. "Very good."

His cheeks turned a faint pink. "Thank you. Now, let's go in on four-man teams and let the others cry to their mommies."

"One set of crying nerds comin' up." She pressed the start button and he looked over at her with helpless adoration, thanking the distraction of the screen for keeping her from noticing. At least with Halo he had a legitimate, tangible reason to admire her. As frustrating as he found her natural affinity for the game, he could not dispute it.

After they had taken a commanding lead and Sheldon was at ease again, he chanced a glance over at her. "What else are you good at?"

"What?" She started mashing buttons. "What else?"

"You have skills at this game; I wonder what other hidden talents you have." He carefully chose his attack and launched himself at the opponent, sweating bullets.

"Oh, I don't even know anymore. I'm good at messing things up, letting myself get overwhelmed, working a crowd, that sort of stuff. I'll be good at finishing that book you gave me, and then I'll be even better at disappointing you with my interpretation of it."

He smiled gently. "Penny, you'll enjoy it. I know you will. I picked it out with you in mind."

"You did?" She paused the game, looking at him pointedly.

He looked at the controller in his hands, squirming a little. "Well, yes. I have no need for the simplistic writing myself. I just..."

The uneasiness that followed his statement made him realize he'd said something wrong again, but he looked at her, a sneaky glance, to make sure he was right. She was holding her breath, staring heatedly at the screen, her lips a thin, angry line. He sighed and put his controller down, feeling like his skin was crawling with imaginary insects. His mother called the feeling "guilt," and for the first time in his life, he was inclined to believe her. He stood up to shake the bugs out of his clothes with a quick lap around the apartment.

"Sheldon?" Penny asked, but her voice still contained a note of irritation. "Where are you going?"

He stopped halfway up the hallway. "I...to my room for a moment."

She sighed, discarding her controller as well. "What now, you lunatic? You can't go sulking whenever you make a little boo-boo. If you'd just say you're sorry...I like it when you apologize. It makes you a little less...I don't know. You're accessible for a change. Haughty still, but real."

He rotated on his heel, feeling very small for a change, and rubbed his arms softly. "While I normally don't like to apologize on principle since I'm rarely, if ever, wrong, it's particularly distressing to apologize to you, Penny. And so often! It's infuriating. If there's one person I care about not-offending, it'd...it'd..." He stopped, feeling like his tongue had just swelled up and filled his throat.

He knew she was going to kiss him again. Somehow, even when he made it all so terribly wrong, he always made it better with her. And when their fighting was simply an enjoyable banter, that was another thing entirely. He wanted to be pushed and feel her shoving and scratching at him. Tonight she had none of the playfulness, and it sucked his antagonistic ways right out of him. He only wanted her to enjoy his company for a change. When that had changed he had no idea, but he was consciously deciding to let things happen for a change.

Leonard pushed open the door and paused when Penny guiltily spun around and collected her hands behind her back in a tight bunch. "Hey, Leonard! How's Stephanie doing?"

He dropped his keys in the bowl loudly. "Uh, fine. What are you two up to?"

"Halo--"

"Books--"

They looked at one another with irritation and Penny held out her hand, one finger raised, and jogged out the door Leonard had left open, returning not a minute later with a worn paperback in her hands. "Quid pro quo, Clarice."

Sheldon looked at the book and groaned softly, turning it over to get the synopsis over with. "Penny, really."

"No complaints, Sir. It's my understanding a great deal of concessions were made." She gazed at him as if undressing him with her eyes and he squirmed helplessly, not able to tell how much of her stare was real and how much was intimidation. This was, he realized a moment too late, the only reason he was nervous. If she truly wanted him to drop his pants at that moment, he might have only hesitated for a moment. The overwhelming urge to ask Leonard to leave surfaced, but he managed to force it to go away, thinking he ought to go through his DVD collection to see if Leonard had, once again, borrowed any and forgotten to return them.

"I'm going to head in early for bed since I have an audition tomorrow." She glanced at Sheldon's red cheeks with a spry grin. "Thanks for the book, Sweetie. I hope you enjoy yours."

"I'm certain I won't," he replied dutifully and watched her leave the apartment, collapsing into his spot to see Penny had paused mid-taunt, squatted over his dead body. The prompt on the screen told him she'd been booted from the game for her betrayal. He smirked and turned off the console, opening up to the first page of The Notebook with a deep breath to steel himself for the horrors within.

***

Tucked in between pages 176 and 177, Sheldon found forty dollars—two twenties—neatly pressed together. He figured she'd want the emergency money to store in another book for the time being and, knowing she would be angry if she weren't already awake for her audition, he walked quietly to her door and leaned his ear closer, trying to figure out what if she was awake. He'd prepared a note to stick to the bills in case she was already gone and was prepared to slide it under the door.

After a moment of listening to silence, he heard her hum something to herself softly and her spoon collided with her bowl loudly. She rinsed the bowl and he listened for the water to stop before knocking.

Knock knock knock. "Penny?"

Inside, she sighed.

Knock knock knock. "Penny?"

He gripped the forty dollars like a lifeline as he heard her approaching and hastened to get his last round of knocks in.

Knock knock knock. "Penny?"

The door swung inward and she leaned against the jamb, smiling at him as she folded her arms. Instinctively, he lifted his elbow to protect his throat. "Good morning, Sweetie. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He brandished the two crisply folded bills. "I found these two twenty-dollar bills folded in between pages 176 and 177 of your book, which you leant me last night."

"You're that far into the book?" she asked incredulously.

"I read at a fairly fast rate, something like 18 to 20,000 words a minute, I believe it is." He blinked at her, not understanding her incredulity. "The human mind rarely needs to read all the letters, just the beginnings and ends of words—the brain fills in the gaps and guesses depending on context and genre with an astonishingly accurate frequency."

She bit her lip, smiling at him like she found him just too funny and his heart started pounding again. His breathing was shallow, he noted. He squirmed under her scrutiny, wanting to collect his robe tighter only to realize he'd left it at home. He squirmed a second time, more intensely, when he realized he was in his pajamas, standing at Penny's doorstep, holding out her forty dollars desperately.

"Come in for a second." She turned away from him and made a show of gathering a ceramic pig from her kitchen counter and presenting it to him. He entered the apartment, closing the door behind him quietly, and folded the bills, sliding them into the slot on the pig's back. She patted the horribly clichéd decoration and put it back on the kitchen counter, biting her lip again.

He thought of his cereal sitting on the counter next to her book and of how much time he was wasting standing in her apartment when he should have been preparing for work. The boys were going to be coming over that night and he didn't want to put himself in a foul mood by starting his day off poorly. She simply stared at him, though, mesmerized by his discomfort and graceful awkwardness. Shaking her head, she rounded the counter and came over to him, keeping an acceptable distance at first.

"I was thinking, Sheldon..."

He didn't like where this was going already, and could hardly keep his lips wrapped around the idea. "Oh, I'm not sure I like it when you're thinking, Penny."

She ignored him, trying to focus on the lovely things he'd said the night before. "And...maybe it would be okay with me if we dropped this whole reciprocation thing. I mean, it's silly, right?"

His first thought was, Oh, good, I can give back that horrid book!

"Then again, I do love to watch a man suffer through The Notebook. It's like making the Devil pay up for betting you your soul against a fiddle of gold, isn't it?" She smirked.

He glared at her, his heart fluttering happily in his chest. His stomach was heavy, his heart was swollen, he was still breathing erratically. He didn't need to do research to know his body was responding to her exquisitely confusing mind. He balled up his hands once, twice, three times to work out the tension racing between them, but failed.

"Tell me something, though." She looked away at last, sparking Sheldon's curiosity. He watched, thinking she was perhaps less confident in this part of the conversation than the rest of it. "You aren't trying to..."

"Trying to?" he queried, trying to prompt her to finish her thought before she got cold feet and insisted she leave for her audition.

"Just tell me you aren't trying to avoid upsetting me because of our agreement." Her demand was rushed, insecure, weak. She looked up at him, totally bare to his will, and he swallowed, not wanting to disappoint her.

"No, Penny. I never...well, I never intentionally try to hurt your feelings." He blinked and looked at his slippered feet. "Leslie Winkle, yes. Even Leonard occasionally, which is not proper social protocol, I know, but never you."

He heard her sigh in what he hoped was relief and looked up to verify he'd said the right thing (which happened to be the honest truth this time) and let out a little sound of surprise when she closed the space between them and hugged him around the shoulders tightly, burying her face in the soft flannel of his pajamas. His arms flew out to the sides, uncertain, awkward, afraid he would scare himself if he allowed the contact to be any more intimate. He was stiff as a board in seconds, eyes wide, trying not to smell her when she was all gussied up for her audition.

"Hugging me back right now is non-optional, Sheldon."

He obeyed, but only because she always seemed to know what she was talking about with regards to social interactions. And then he rested his head atop hers, still tense, but slowly relaxing as her warm breath washed over his neck. He remembered their kiss and his breath hitched, which Penny miraculously noticed and drew back just a fraction of an inch, her eyes hooded, sexy. He started to scramble away but met the back of her door and whimpered softly, not out of disgust or dismay, but anticipation. He felt neutral about it until her lips softly latched onto his neck. Then he was nothing but a typical male specimen in the hands of a calculating female.

When she'd left an angry red mark, she moved to his lips and he sunk down, sliding against her door until he was eye-level with her, though he'd shut his eyes instinctively when she moved her ministrations to his lips. She was wearing lip balm, but not lip gloss. He could tell because the minty taste that followed her kisses made his lips tingle and he imagined hers were, too. Peppermint—most likely Burt's Bees.

He made no motions toward her until she dragged him from his almost-squatting position by the door to her couch and made him sit. He thought again of his soggy cereal and started to sit up, mouth prepared to deliver a healthy list of reasons he should leave, but the minute she adjusted her legs around his hips and settled over him, he forgot how to speak. He simply settled two nervous, slightly trembling hands on her waist and let her shower him in peppermint kisses until he was suffocating in her smell, her touch, her everything. There was a moment he felt that odd vibe again, but this time he only knew it as a twisting, roiling thing in his heavy stomach, and it only seemed to get tighter as she lavished him with all this physical contact. When she had given him enough data, he mutely returned more of the pressure against his lips, slid a hand up to brace himself on her shoulder, and met her inch-for-inch, imagining he looked no more graceful than the time he and Leonard had fallen to fisticuffs.

She made a soft noise when he finally started kissing her back. She made a louder noise when he closed his lips tightly over her upper lip and tugged experimentally. She damn near lost it when he relaxed and let them slide back a few inches further into the couch cushions and the angle let her crush her chest against his.

Penny hated the fact she did this to him. She imagined him catatonic back at the apartment, able to pull himself together by the time he got to the office with Leonard, but today, she was uncertain if this was cruel. If she was being totally honest with herself, she couldn't be sure why exactly she was kissing him today. Sure, she was glad he thought she was so important, and that he was finding ways to say it finally, but this tongue thing? The way she'd shoved him to the couch and practically started to paw at him through his pajamas? This was new, and not necessarily out of her desire to help him grow as a person. Truth be told, if he didn't change an iota more, she would be satisfied. Not happy, but satisfied. His horizons were at least a little broader than before.

She revisited the red mark on his neck and touched it up a bit, smoothing his pajamas when she was sure she could get up and walk away without desperately wanting to jump back on his surprisingly comfortable lap. His arms remained locked, albeit loosely, around her hips.

Just one more, she promised herself and delivered one last lazy kiss to his slightly reddened lips, drawing back with an audible pop! just as Sheldon's eyes fell shut. He opened them not a moment later, looking perplexed, but not upset.

She looked at his watch. "Oh, shit! I'm gonna be late!"

He released her and she jumped up, throwing her coat on. He watched her, noting that his pulse was still pounding away loudly in his ears. He swallowed, tasting toothpaste and Burt's Bees on his lips, and stood to let himself out.

"I'll see you later tonight, Sheldon." She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for bringing over my rainy day money."

He nodded curtly, slowly making his way over to his door. Once inside, he seated himself behind the kitchen island on a stool to eat, but ended up stirring around the soggy goop the bowl had become with little enthusiasm. He was grateful he was no longer hungry. After a few moments of squirming, trying to undo the perfect memory of Penny tightening her knees against his hips and of Penny smoothing her hands over his shoulders to his ribs, he gritted his teeth and tried to name the elements in order of their atomic weights. He didn't get far. Tossing his cereal in the sink and washing it down with lukewarm water, he noticed he was flushed and cautiously took a moment to peek at the front of his pajama bottoms.

"Oh, dear God!" He scurried into the bathroom ten minutes late and stayed under the cold spray of the shower an extra twenty minutes, infuriating Leonard and making them both over half an hour late to work. He sulked the whole way there.

By lunch, Leonard was truly concerned about the muted Sheldon, who didn't seem unhappy, but did seem unsettled. He drummed his fingers on his legs the entire ride to work and kept hugging his clothes tighter to his body in some places. He appeared to be trying to avoid thinking of something while that only forced him to think more intently of it. He had to get to the bottom of this.

Leonard closed the radiation lab door behind himself and looked both ways, feeling absolutely sure someone or something was listening and would get the word back to Sheldon. He cleared his throat, looking blankly at Howard and Raj, who had each folded their arms and started tapping their feet.

"Well?" Howard demanded, squinting at Leonard with irritation. "I have to get back to the schedule posted for the electron laser."

"No you don't." Raj replied snappily. "You want to get back to the cafeteria to watch the vendor for the Doritos machine try to get that piece of Pop-Tart you wedged in the coin slot out."

"She has beautiful legs, what can I say?" Howard smiled and Leonard waved, shushing them. He turned, peeked out into the hall, and let out a sigh when he didn't see Sheldon searching for them.

"What's he done now?" Raj asked, putting his hands on his hips softly. "Does this have anything to do with Penny?"

Howard laughed. "Raj, come on. Do you hear yourself?" He looked to Leonard for support, but saw him wincing, then shrugging. He looked nervously at the door once more, and fixed Howard with a cautious stare.

"Gentleman, as disgusting or strange as it is, they...have developed an interest in one another. I'm pretty sure they're both in denial." Leonard hugged his elbows. "Penny is a little more intuitive, impulsive. Sheldon is...Sheldon. He has no idea what he's doing, or if he's doing anything, or what he should be doing."

"Well, what should be be doing?" Howard asked, sounding horrified. "You really want to do something to help put that woman and that...thing in a relationship? What do you think that'll be like, Leonard?" Howard grabbed his heart. "What if they have sex in your apartment, Leonard? Oh my God, what if Sheldon has sex?"

Leonard laughed and shook his head. "You guys don't understand! Last night, Penny spent ten minutes explaining to me the theory of antimatter."

"And?" Howard seemed to be on the edge of his proverbial seat, eyes wide, half-expecting but never-believing what he would hear.

Leonard laughed, but it sounded half-crazed. "She and Sheldon have come up with this book club thing. It's insane, she's reading Antimatter this week. He's been forced to read The Notebook. When she's done with this book, he's got The Physics of Superheroes and The Andromeda Strain lined up for her."

"But that's not all?" Howard asked, wincing in advance, seeing Leonard's confused and distant expression.

Leonard laughed. "No! Well, it's not earth-shattering, but he hasn't written...okay, it's earth-shattering." He took a deep, steadying breath. "He hasn't written a single page for his article in almost two weeks."

Raj shook his head, staring blankly at the wall beyond Leonard as if in a trance. "What is happening to us?"

"He's just taking some Sheldon-y form of pity on her." Howard rolled his eyes, feeling a little overwhelmed nevertheless. "Didn't you say you overheard them arguing about her trip to the hospital?"

Leonard nodded, smiling privately to his shoes. "She slipped in the shower." He waited a beat for Howard's noise of approval. "Sheldon had to help dress her. He apparently...peeked at her."

Raj and Howard both made noises of utter disgust, as if the thought had never crossed their minds. Her short-shorts and tank tops were cause for notice, but to think Sheldon, who didn't seem to notice what anyone was wearing? Unless that something was not gender-appropriate, but even his understanding of that seemed limited. Howard had an intense memory of seeing Columbia, the squeaky-voiced singer from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, dancing at the end of the film. Her corset was a little loose, and a few times, thanks to her enthusiastic dance routine, her breast became clearly visible. He'd looked over, intent on seeing Sheldon's reaction.

He had been looking around the theater, face a little flushed, trying to figure out the architecture, or structural stability. He would glance up at the screen now and then, and then over at Penny as if wondering if it was an element of the costume one planned for. He sighed, looking up at the screen, and then Penny had patted his knee and the poor man had jumped from his skin, letting out a very loud squeak. Penny had just giggled and Sheldon had leveled a glare at her unlike anything Howard or the others had ever seen.

"Oh my God he likes her!" Howard's voice escalated until he was practically shouting. "Oh my God, Leonard! Does he even know?"

Raj interrupted before Leonard could even speak. "Jesus, do you think...no...but she must! Leonard, Penny likes him, doesn't she?" Raj clapped his hands over his mouth and then spoke around his barely parted fingers. "That's not fighting, is it? It's foreplay!"

"Okay, Raj, I think you need to stop. Wolowitz looks like he's about to faint." Leonard muttered and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. "And for what it's worth, they're both in denial. Penny would probably punch any of us if we tried to convince her she was even remotely interested in Sheldon. But she'll figure it out on her own. By the time she does, I'm hoping we can help Sheldon not be so hopelessly unresponsive."

Howard suddenly got the firmness back in his legs. He straightened, looking conspiratorial as he cleared his throat. "Okay, before we make any plans, let's examine all the other possibilities. This doesn't seem all that different from what you were doing when you were interested in her, right? You were all over that ex-boyfriend, trying to do the good thing."

Blushing, Leonard nodded. "Yeah, but...I was doing it because I knew the gesture meant she would notice I was interested. Can you really see Sheldon doing anything for her because he wants her to be interested in him? He genuinely wants to see her feel more...confident around us. And, on a selfish note, of course, he'd love to not have to explain the most rudimentary of physics to her in order to bring up his one, real passion: science.""

"What the hell?" Raj sounded on the brink of tears almost. "What did he say? Did he tell you why he bought the book? Why he was reading that awful, romantic trash?"

"He added something to his stupid equation on his board and told me he was making 'a conscious effort to let some of his impulses run their course.'"

Howard covered his face with both hands, mirroring Raj, who was still covering his mouth, and they groaned in unison, looking at Leonard helplessly.

Swallowing, Leonard delicately began to dance around the real reason he'd dragged them away from lunch rather than hurrying to meet Sheldon at their usual table. "Even if the changes are subtle, he is getting easier to live with. Even if you think this whole thing is highly disturbing, you can't say it isn't making him happier somehow. And a happy Sheldon is good for everyone, wouldn't you agree?"

"Just tell us what you want us to do!" Raj exploded, tugging on his jacket sleeves, eyes darting all over the lab.

Leonard chanced one last glance at the door to make sure their friend hadn't come looking for his missing companions. "We're going to help him win the girl."

"This is asinine!" Howard collapsed onto a lab stool and laughed uncomfortably. "What's worse, the more I think about it, the less absurd it seems! What is happening to us?"

"The day I attend Sheldon's wedding is the day Howard successfully woos the woman of his dreams." Raj mumbled grumpily. "I want to be happy for him, but I can't, not right now. That's terrible, isn't it?" He hardly waited for an answer. "It's terrible."

Gathering them a little closer, Leonard shook his head, smiling encouragingly. "Look, it's not that bad. We're not matchmakers—we'd make it worse if we tried. Let's just agree not to let him crash and burn. Let's agree to gently guide him, okay? Eventually he'll figure it out."

In the interminable silence that followed, Leonard imagined what was running through their frazzled minds. Finally, with a sigh that said he was somehow, as Leonard had been, proud of their socially-challenged friend, Howard nodded and mumbled, "I'm in." Raj followed and patted Howard on the shoulder. They looked at Leonard and he sighed, feeling a little more optimistic about the whole thing. The door behind them burst open and they all spun, eyes widening at Sheldon's less-than-impressed stare.

"Am I missing something?"

Leonard stepped forward a little and smiled, playing with his fingertips, rolling to the outsides of his sneakers. "Just talking about..."

"A Christmas party." Howard suddenly interjected, biting his thumb in horror. Of all the idiotic things to say!

Sheldon lifted an eyebrow. "A party."

"Penny's friend Yvette was going to throw one, but she's going to be out of town that weekend and Penny's feeling a little homesick." Raj tried valiantly to save the effort, making all three of them wince.

Shaking his head, Sheldon simply held the door for the three of them as they filed out. "I hope you weren't planning on using our apartment, Leonard. Do I need to remind you of our roommate agreement?"

"No, Sheldon." Leonard sighed and then perked a little. "But we do have more room for people, and Penny was really looking forward to watching Miracle on 34th Street with good surround sound."

The door swung shut a little and Sheldon looked thoughtful as he fiddled with his watch absently. "Hmm. We do have superior sound quality. Maybe we could reach a compromise?"

"Yeah, she'd probably go for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," Howard replied sarcastically, but Sheldon's eyes lit up. They looked at one another incredulously, as if asking how they could have possibly made things any worse for themselves. As if to answer the unspoken question, Raj helplessly blurted, "Mistletoe!"

Leonard bit back a vicious curse word as Sheldon looked at them all as if they'd lost their minds and shook his head, leading them into the cafeteria where furtive glances followed them all the way to their usual table. Unable to resist poking fun, Leslie Winkle slowed as she passed the table.

"Aren't you behind on something?"

Sheldon looked at her, baffled. "I'm sorry, do I have a spare moment for a cavewoman like you right now? I'm busy."

His wit was notoriously poor when faced with his self-described nemesis, but today it wasn't a half-bad attempt. Leslie simply called him a dumbass before walking away.

"So, Sheldon, how's the book club going?" Howard asked, trying not to look too smug.

Looking out of his lunch with a bit of a shit-eating grin, he glanced at Leonard. "Why don't you tell them what Penny's learned?"

"Oh, trust me, I did. They want to know about your half of things, I'm sure."

Nodding a little, Sheldon produced a worn copy of The Notebook and tapped the top of the pages, indicating his bookmarked page, which was a handful of chapters from the end. "It's awful, but I see why Penny likes it."

Raj winced. "Dude, can you just once pretend you think she's not an idiot?"

"She's not an idiot!" Sheldon seemed scandalized at the very idea. "I mean, even Penny says the book isn't terribly well-written. It's the plot that intrigues her. And, I suppose, on some level it is interesting. But, as I warned her, it's not up my alley." He dropped the paperback to the table loudly. "I'll suffer through these pages gladly. It's worth it to hear her telling Leonard a thing or two about physics. To think, if I had the resources and time, I could have her fighting for your job!"

Unable to take the smugness, the utter obliviousness, Leonard cleared his throat. "Did you go over to her apartment this morning to talk to her about something?"

Sheldon's face pinked a little and he gathered his layered shirts a little closer to his neck, shaking his head. His eye twitched very briefly, but he took a steadying breath and resumed preparing his meal on his tray, ignoring Howard's fixed stare. Beneath the table, Howard typed a frantic message to Raj and Leonard. Desperate for speed, he had selected a group from his stored contacts and sent the message in a hurry. He waited for them to receive it, trying to stare into his plate as inconspicuously as possible.

Leonard grasped his phone and flipped it open a crack, reading the message from Wolowitz quickly.

Massive hickey on Sheldon's neck...maybe no speaking was necessary?

After a few moments, Howard fell his phone vibrate and peeked at it under the table.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe one is not supposed to send a text to the person who is in fact the subject of said message. Coughing in surprise, Howard looked up and saw Sheldon had fixed him, once again, with a level, hateful stare. Still, it was nowhere near the power he reserved for the blonde who lived across the hall.