The next thing Sheldon knew Penny was quickly pulling Zoe off of him, her face a mixture of shock and surprise. "Zoe…Zoe…Zoe," said Penny nervously.. "What did I tell you baby?" Zoe nodded and slid out of Penny's arms.

"Oh, that's right. I'm sorry mommy," she said. "I was just over excited to see him, it toofk me off guard and I forgot what we discussed."

Sheldon observed Zoe. If there was one thing he could spot a mile away, it was a one of his own and in those few words, the way they were delivered, her expressions, despite the high animated child-like voice, all of it pointed toward an abnormally high IQ.

"I know you're excited sweety," said Penny. "But remember, you can't paw on him." Zoe nodded as a look of remembrance came over her face.

"Oh yes, his aversion to human contact," Zoe muttered before turning to look up at Sheldon. "I am very sorry for invading your personal space Dr. Cooper. What are your feelings toward hand-shaking?"

She held out a tiny hand to him expectantly but Sheldon didn't react. How was one to react to such a situation? In one short moment, his world had come crashing down. It was supposed to be a normal day. He had picked up a comic book, he was going home, he would read his comic book and then he would go to Leonard's apartment for dinner. Now in one single moment, all of this had been disrupted, and he was allowing it to be disrupted.

"Dr. Cooper?" The little voice calling his name shook him from his reverie. She looked at him concerned. He took her hand thoughtlessly and shook it…it was so tiny it was strange looking to him. He had absolutely no contact with children since he left his home in Texas, they perplexed him, in part because he was never really one of them in any other way that he had been small and unable to vote, but also that they were like little people. They consisted of legs, arms, hands, feet, a head, everything just miniaturized.

"My name is Zoe Lee Ryan," she said, continuing their conversation, whether or not Sheldon participated or not.

"Hello," he said carefully, somewhat cautiously. "I am Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper."

"I know," she said happily. "We have the same middle name, we have the same DNA for that matter which I suppose is somewhat relevant…"

"Zoe," said Penny suddenly. "Could you go back into the shop for a little and give us some time to talk?" Zoe looked from Sheldon to Penny pleadingly.

"I promise you'll get to say good bye," said Penny. "But you understand how difficult this is for Dr. Cooper."

Zoe nodded. "I suppose meeting your progeny for the first time seven-years-later with your ex-paramore would be an awkward one," she said, reasoning out the circumstance.

"Yes Ma'am," said Penny with a nod. "So if you would let me talk to Dr. Cooper for a little first I think it would help him."

"Alright," said Zoe, turning her gaze toward Sheldon. "Promise you won't leave without saying goodbye. I haven't waited this long to meet you and not get a proper goodbye, especially as it could very well be the last time I see you."

Sheldon nodded absently, unable to beckon up words yet. Satisfied, Zoe turned and scampered back into the store.

"I'm sorry," said Penny, her eyes still forward looking at the path Zoe took back into the store. "I mean to tell you I was back in Pasadena but…I just…"her voice faltered. "I didn't know if you'd want to know." Sheldon nodded still staring wide-eyed at the store, he could see Zoe through the window still.

"I told Leonard," she continued.

"Who of course failed to relay the message," said Sheldon. "It has taken him quite a while to forgive me for allowing you to just leave."

"Allowing me," scoffed Penny. "Like you could've stopped me." Sheldon nodded in ascension to that point.

"What brings you back to Pasadena," asked Sheldon, finally turning his gaze back to Penny. A smile broke out onto her face which, for some reason, as it always did before, made him feel a little giddy.

"This," she said, gesturing grandly to the boutique. Sheldon looked at her confused. "We've been in business for about 4 months." Sheldon looked up, written in scrip that screamed Penny was the name of the store.

"Penny Blossoms," he read, he was immfediately taken back. That had been there project, one of many times he came to her rescue.

"Turns out I'm a much better designer then an actress," she said with a laugh. "I started off doing adult stuff, but I loved making stuff for Zoe so I started making children's clothes and had a lot of success there, so here we are. I make the clothes and Jake handles marketing and budget and all that stuff, I actually learned how to do that when I started doing this on my own, but he loves being involved."

"Jake?"

"Husband," she said, somewhat cautiously, holding up her hand, a glittering diamond winked mockingly at him, everything she had wanted and everything he was not willing to give her.

"Oh yes, of course," said Sheldon, masking any emotion that the ring stirred. "Congratulations."

"Thanks she said."

"And does Zoe approve of him?"

"Oh she loves him," said Penny happily. "Jake and I met when Zoe was 3, so she knows he's not her biological father, but it has never mattered."

Sheldon nodded. He was once again possessed by an illogical feeling. He could not possibly be jealous. It was not as if he had any paternal claim over her. Penny watched the subtle display of emotions play across Sheldon's face.

"But she's always wanted to meet you," said Penny, looking at him. "I told her about you when she was young. I knew when she started showing signs that she was like you that I wouldn't be able to lie or have any hopes that she would forget…"

"Like me?"

"She's a genius," said Penny with a shrug and a smile. "She inherited your beautiful mind." Sheldon's face lit up slightly before he could help it or hide it but then he quickly reminded himself that he did not care about Zoe, nor did he have any vested concern in her life.

"Really," he asked, trying to sound detached.

"Really," said Penny, her smile growing at the chance to brag on her little girl once again. "She's brilliant. At first I thought she was just smart when she was 3 she started reading. But she had amazing recall for everything she learned, and I remembered your eidetic memory and though she might have inherited that. She taught herself calculus by the time she was 5, but she is particularly fond of the sciences. She likes physics and engineering, don't tell Howard, but I encourage physics," she said with a wink. "But she also loves to paint, and draw, and read and write. She does ballet, and she just signed up for karate lessons. She' just amazing."

Sheldon didn't know what to make of the emotions at play within him. Pride was something he had never felt for another human being, but then he recalled he had little right to pride. She was not his child, he had nothing to do with her, aside from the contribution of his quality genes.

"We had her tested when she was 5," said Penny.

"An IQ unable to be accurately measured by human tests?"

"Yup…she has my temper and your genius."

"What does that mean?"

"It means when she insults someone, she knows it," she said with a laugh. "It's caused a few problems at schools, no matter where we put her it never fits. One of her teachers said it was rebellion and a bad attitude. But I informed her it was more of the same healthy suspicion of authority we see exhibited at the Boston Tea Part...she did not agree."

Sheldon looked carefully at Penny. She had changed. Still the same razor sharp claws when she wanted them but more polished and precise. As if on cue, Penny through her familiar 1000 watt smile his way, that hadn't changed at all, nor did it's odd and inexplicable ability to make his knees go a tiny bit shaky.

"She adores you Sheldon."

"I can't imagine that's true," said Sheldon. "Considering all I am to her is the sperm donor who and the man who drove her mother away."

Penny turned to face Sheldon completely.

"Sheldon, look at me," she ordered. Sheldon obeyed, cautiously. "She knows it was my choice, she never thought you abandoned her." Sheldon felt a tightness in his chest, and a stab of admiration for Penny. What woman would do that? He thought, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," yet here was Penny, defending him to his estranged child.

"How does she seem to know me so well?"

"I told her about you when she was young, she knows Jake isn't her father and a four year old genius presses things more than most. I told her, we were very young, we were best friends, but you were a genius scientist and had some things you needed to do and we just didn't fit into the picture." Why did this cause the tightening in his chest to become more painful? He had wanted this after all, solitude, you couldn't make a Nobel Prize worthy discovery with a significant other and a child hanging around.

"It didn't come up again until she was five. She found you actually." Penny got a bewildered look in her eye. "It was so weird. She wasn't even trying, but I told you she likes Physics and she was trying to teach herself more and one day she brought me an article, your article, and told me you were her favorite scientists because your article was one of the few she didn't understand. I know you don't believe in this kind of thing but I took it as a sign that I was supposed to tell her who you are. She just fell in love with you, she read all your articles, about all your experiments, she tries to talk to me about them and it's like when you tried to tell me about them…" She made a whooshing sound and through her hand over her head.

Sheldon looked at her perplexed.

"Over my head," she explained patiently. "Anyway, she's been wanting to meet you. But I told her it probably wasn't going to happen but then when we decided to go into business and Jake started looking for good places and this was the place he picked. All of it was just weird. "

"Actually…" Sheldon was about to say something about the probability being not too astronomical but he decided to bite his tongue, something he should have done more often near the end.

"So I told her that maybe, one day, I might talk to you and see…I never imagined it would be this soon or that it would happen this way, and I am really sorry, I know this is overwhelming," she spoke gently, looking up at him with soft sympathetic eyes. "Tell me what you're thinking sweety."

"I really don't know," he said slowly, as if not believing the words himself. "I seem to be experiencing a sort of overload of both facts and emotions"

"Of course you are," she said. "And that's okay. You don't have to do anything now accept say goodbye to Zoe. If that's the last you want to see her, then that's okay too."

Sheldon didn't know why but that thought made the feeling of nausea return.

"You will say goodbye right," pressed Penny.

"I gave my solemn vow that I would," he said.

Penny laughed at his dramatics. "You haven't changed a bit," she said lightly. But Sheldon was struck by the words, that was the problem in the first place, wasn't it? He doesn't change.

Sheldon followed her into the boutique. Perhaps she hadn't changed that much herself. The place was exactly Penny's style, brightly colored walls, tables of accessories, notably the original Penny Blossoms. It was, Sheldon observed, "cute" according to conventional standards. And while he was not known for his own fashion sense and had little respect for the field of design, he admitted that the apparel matched what parents typically desire their children to wear. In simpler words, Penny had certainly found her niche.

Penny led him to a nook in the back of the store where Zoe sat reading a book of fairy tales in the corner. Sheldon raised an eyebrow and started to make a snort of derision.

"Father, before you start, I know you have a general disrespect for the field of literature," she raised her eyes from the colorful pages and looked at him. "But I think someone with a such a fondness for comic books might want to keep their opinion of Grimm fairy tales to themselves."

Sheldon's face twitched as he struggled for a comeback. Blast, he thought, bested by his 6-year-old offspring.

"As per your request," Sheldon went on. "I'm informing you to the fact that I am departing." Sheldon noticed the flicker of disappointment in Zoe's eyes, and for some reason it made him feel a slight surge of happiness. She wanted him to stay, that wasn't something he could say of many people, aside from Penny, well Penny once upon a time.

"Alright then," she said, closing the book and standing up. "Then I suppose this is goodbye." Suddenly her eyes brightened. "Unless of course, you want to come to my ballet recital tomorrow?"

"I don't really care for the ballet,' he said bluntly, though not harshly.

"I assumed so," said Zoe. "Which is very silly, it's a beautiful form of artistic expression, not to mention the impressive resolve of those who do the art. You try performing "Swan Lake" with a pulled Achilles Tendon."

"That is hardly an argument," said Sheldon. "Quality of the art is not at all related to the difficulty of the task. Do you know hard it is to write your name in the snow with urine? Very difficult, but that does not mean this is a task worthy of anyone's time or effort."

"Perhaps not, but if someone were to paint the Mona Lisa with their urine, I would want to see that. It's more dependent on the outcome. And the outcome of ballet is pure grace and beauty."

"Well if you consider that a worthwhile outcome…"
"I do," she asserted forcibly with a nod. "And I really really really would like it if you could come. I'm the youngest in my class and only joined this class five months ago, but I got the lead anyway."

She looked up at him, eyes wide and pleading. He had always presumed himself to be immune to such antics, no one bothered to appeal to an emotional side because everyone assumed he lacked one, since Penny nobody bothered. Yet, here was Zoe, looking up at him, and for some odd reason, he imagined saying no to her would be a somewhat Herculian task. He was a bit frightened, why did he want to go at all? Why was it even an option in his mind? Tomorrow was vintage game night, and he was considering disturbing it in order to attend this child's ballet recital.

"I suppose I can spare a few hours…"

Zoe did a leap of excitement and clapped her hands together excitedly. "Did you hear that mommy? Is that okay?"

Penny looked from her excited daughter to a bewildered Sheldon. "Of course," she said slowly, almost

as confused as Sheldon. "If Sheldon wants to come he can." She turned toward him. "It's 1542 Euclid Avenue, 7 o' clock. We'll leave a ticket for you at the front."

Sheldon nodded. The three of them stood there for a moment. Penny fully aware of the potential awkwardness that awaited them, Sheldon trying to reconcile the emotions currently at odds within him, and Zoe hopping for joy that her hero would be watching her perform Swan Lake.