For the next six days, Penny and Sheldon lived as if the events of the weekend had never happened. Sheldon made a point to not cross the hallway to her apartment for any reason—even when he had a question about a type of shoe that Amy had mentioned being fond of on their Sunday evening outing. Luckily, his adeptness as searching the internet allowed him to avoid that interruption. For her part, Penny also avoided any trips over to the apartment. She managed to lure Leonard over Sunday night for dinner by text, stating that she had a surprise for him. Of course, they ended up in bed, which made Leonard happy, but Penny was conflicted, although, as always, she hid it perfectly. There was no way she was going to let on that Sheldon had gotten a free peek at her nip, or that she'd bumped Leonard down to No. 2 on her "Most Fascinating Nerds" list.

Monday night was the first time they interacted face-to-face since "the Touch Talk," as Penny would later call it. Thai Food was ordered and retrieved in the standard way, and Sheldon's order was the same as it always was, and Penny gobbled up her noodles and laughed with the others as they watched Duck Dynasty, a reality show that Raj, of all people, was currently obsessed with. She greeted Sheldon, and they shared a pregnant glance, but nothing else out of the ordinary transpired. They said their goodbyes at 10 o'clock and went their separate ways.

On Wednesday, they managed a brief encounter in the hallway, Sheldon on his way up the stairs from the mailbox, Penny on her way down to meet a friend for lunch. They said hello, exchanged brief pleasantries, and moved on. That evening was Halo Night and Penny begged off, taking an extra shift at work. Sheldon, of course, seemed no more or less disinterested than usual in her affairs, and the boys had a great night of questing, fighting, and carnage.

Saturday night was laundry night, and Sheldon had no intention of altering his routine for the sake of avoiding Penny. Penny, of course, had an overflowing basket of soiled clothing to wash, so she couldn't afford to delay any longer. So the stage was set for them to end up in the laundry room that evening, all alone except for the drone of dryers and swish of agitators.

Sheldon was busy with his folding board, finishing his first load of shirts when she arrived a little after 8 o'clock.

"Hey," she said, taking a washer on the opposite side of the room.

"Hello, Penny," he replied, returning to his folding. She silently began sorting her clothes and pulling out her quarters. For the next ten minutes, the shared a heavy silence as their machines droned on, the occasionally buzz indicating cycles were ending and clothes were ready to be moved on to the next destination. Eventually, Penny turned away from Sheldon as she transferred her first load to the dryer, and Sheldon was cleaning the fabric softener dispenser for the third time. He pulled off his rubber gloves, then poured a cup of softener, turning on the machine.

"You made a mondegreen, you know," he said offhandedly, still facing his washer.

Penny stood up from bending over the lint filter in her dryer, a look of annoyance on her face. "I made a what?" she asked, not turning towards Sheldon.

"A mondegreen. A grammatical error caused when one hears a word but interprets it with the meaning of a homophone," he lectured, returning to his folding. "It's a common enough phonetic mistake. Most people don't even realize they do it and go through their whole lives misunderstanding and mispronouncing their own native tongue."

Penny huffed and leaned on the dryer pensively. "Okay, I'll bite," she said with a sigh, turning towards her neighbor. "What heinous crime have I committed against the English language?"

Sheldon blinked in slight surprise. "Oh, no crime, merely an error," he continued. "Last Friday, in the aftermath of our contest, you substituted the proper name Nobel with the adjective 'noble.' You said, 'At least I'm not the noble prize winner for the World's Biggest Ass.'"

"Oh my God, Sheldon, you are NOT going back there are you?" Penny cried out, incredulously. "If you wanna have this conversation, you're going to have it with yourself, because I'm taking my wet underwear and going back to my apartment." She grabbed her basket briskly, then stopped. "That sounded dirty, but you know what I mean," she said as she began gathering her clothes from the dryer.

"Well, it's been bothering me since last week, because when you tell your grandchildren you were friends with a Prize-Winning Laureate in physics, I don't want them to think that I was just a well-born or generically excellent physicist who won non-descript prizes."

"Don't you worry, Sheldon," she said, flipping open a newly-filled washing machine. "I'll make sure they know you were THE No-BEL Prize Winner—in Physics and Ass-tronomy!"

They both stopped what they were doing, looking at each other.

"You see, you made a pun," he said, pointing to her. "Remind me never to take you on in Wordplay! You're good!"

"Whatever," she said, shaking her head over the water-logged clothes in the machine. "I'll have to come back later and get these out." She threw the rest of her dry clothes on top of the dirty clothes that had remained unsorted and lifted her basket.

"Since I've obviously made laundry night difficult for you, I'd be happy to finish your laundry and bring it up to you when it's done," Sheldon offered.

"Oh, you would, would you?" she said, holding her basket on her hip as she turned towards him. "Has my wordplay made you so happy you need some camouflage?"

He looked at her with confusion, then straightened when he gathered her meaning. "I don't need to camouflage my genitals, if that's your meaning."

She rolled her eyes and looked down at Sheldon. "Thanks for the great visual. I'll leave you to your Mandarin thingies." She turned to the door and started walking.

"It's mondegreen," he corrected, watching her leave with a look of concern, then spoke in an urgent tone. "I've been thinking a lot about you this week."

She stopped, puffed out her cheeks in disgust. "Goodbye, Sheldon," she said half-heartedly, moving toward the door.

He moved a step forward. "I really enjoyed our visit, at least until things became…awkward," he said, averting his eyes towards the ground.

She squeezed her eyes shut and sniffed, still facing the door. "I did too, Sheldon."

He stood for a moment, not sure where to go in the conversation. Finally, he muttered, "That is all."

Penny pursed her lips and opened her eyes. "Okay, Sheldon," she answered, her voice low and ragged with emotion. "See ya later." She reached for the door.

His face took on a hint of panic. "When you touch me, I don't feel afraid anymore," he blurted.

She stopped, and two tears rolled down her cheeks, falling on faintly-smiling lips.

"I like the way your hands feel holding mine, Penny. As long as they've been properly disinfected, of course."

She dropped her basket at her feet and turned around her eyes burning with annoyance, but her mouth kinked in a smile. "Sheldon Cooper, you are an ass!"

"Well, I am a Nobel prize winner, after all," he added drolly.

She strode up to him and engulfed him in her arms, and he wrapped his arms around her, and then gently patted her head as she laughed tearfully into his chest.

"There, there," he said, stroking her hair. "Sheldon's here."

She lifted her wet face and looked up into his eyes. "Backatcha, Moonpie."