"Leonard," Penny grumbled miserably with her forehead resting against the cool toilet seat, "please tell me I didn't make an absolute ass of myself last night in front of Alex. It was just a dream right?"

Leonard fumbled with a way to make things seem a little less than the disaster that had occurred. "Um well, I… you—ah, uh…"

"Leonard!" she barked. "Did I or didn't I?"

"Well it certainly.. wasn't the nicest you've ever been," Leonard admitted, shoulders raised as he braced himself for Penny's emotional onslaught.

"Oh, God, it did happen! Leonard, I feel awful! How could I have said those mean things to Alex?" She stood unsteadily and shook her head with a grimace. Her phone buzzed and sang on their headboard. "I mean, granted, they were mostly true but I don't think she's really a hussy. I do think she is mental for liking Sheldon."

The waitress brushed her teeth quickly to rid any sick taste from her mouth. She straightened her messy hair and hustled into their room.

As he followed her into their bedroom, he said, "I really don't think she likes Sheldon, Penny."

"You're kidding me, right?" Penny asked as she retrieved her phone. It buzzed two more times. "She practically eyesexed him all night until he looked at her, then she just casually looked away? The craziest part was it looked like Sheldon was doing the exact same thing!"

Her attention was diverted as she began reading the texts from her self-proclaimed best friend.

"Sweetheart," Leonard spoke slowly, "It may be crazy to think that Alex likes Leonard, but it's batpoop insane to think Sheldon would ever feel the same. Alex is an artist and that drives him crazy. And he also complains about her all the time. All. The. Time. And he always talks about her doing things that are exactly like the neurotic things he does… Except, well… he does love himself and doesn't see the things that he does as irrational at all… Oh, my God, you might be right!"

"Leonard." Penny gasped, one hand fluttered to her mouth. She had completely ignored the trail of outward spoken thoughts her boyfriend had just announced. Her eyes were wide as she stared at her phone.

"What is it?" he asked, a little worried now from the look on her face.

She handed the phone to him and he read the series of text messages from Amy Farrah Fowler out loud.

"'Penny, I am soooooo wasted'—which is spelled wrong here."

"Read the rest, Leonard."

"Okay, right. 'I'm going to go over to Raj's. He's lonely. Like me. Do you think I should go?' 'Hello? Bestie?' 'Ok, I'm at Raj's. He's like hot caramel apple sauce. You know what I mean?' 'Oh right, you do. You slept with him that one time...'"

Leonard stopped talking, turned an intense glare towards his girlfriend, looked back at the screen, then once more to her face. Penny's jaw dropped and she quickly swiped the phone from his limp grasp. Oh God, she thought, panicking. I hadn't told him about that almost-sex.

"Um. She's joking," Penny squeaked. "Ha-ha. What an awful joke. I'm going to text her now how not funny that joke was."

"How could you?" Leonard grilled her. He turned his back to her, running two shaking hands through his thick hair. "Why didn't you tell me? How many of my friends have you slept with, Penny? Am I going to find out you slept with Sheldon? Howard?" A deep breath and a hitch in his throat, he shook his head over and over, the motion loosening little strands of his curly hair.

"None, Leonard, believe me," Penny pleaded. Her hands gripped her chest over her heart, willing it to not shatter. "We didn't actually even have sex. We were going to but—"

"You know what? Never mind. I don't want to know… I… I'm gonna go. I can't even look at you right now." He gathered a suitcase and started blindly throwing clothes into the open orifice.

"Please. You have no idea how sorry I am. I should have told you. Things have been so good betwe—"

"You're damn right you should have told me!" Leonard shouted, incredulous. He eyed her for just a moment, watched her face blanch and her eyes sparkle with the promise of tears. He turned before he could weaken, before he could let her change his mind.

The door slam pronounced Leonard's anger without the use of anymore words.

"Great job, Penny," she derided herself and plopped on the bed. "Just let Leonard read the texts about Amy and Raj. Idiot!" The distraction subsided and she finished reading the rest of the texts indicating that Raj had taken Amy's virginity. Amy was on her way over and was freaking out.

*~*~*BBT~*~*~*

Plastic sheeting covering walls, floors, counters, nearly every inch of the kitchen. Alex stood before the sink in a biohazard suit. The sheeting crinkled and hissed as she disassembled the plastic. Sheldon paid no mind to the goings-on in the adjoining room, most of his concentration on the laptop in front of him.

"Are you guys repainting the kitchen?" Leonard asked, attempting to strike up conversation.

"No. I should think it obvious what Alex is in the process of doing," Sheldon remarked as his long fingers expertly tap danced over the keypad.

"Making a nuclear warhead?"

"You can't be serious," Sheldon chuffed indignantly. He cocked his head to the side, narrowed eyes, and shook his head in disbelief at the previous roommate.

"I—you know what, never mind," Leonard grumbled and kept alternating glances between the quiet Sheldon and the occupied woman.

Alex had finished gathering the plastic sheeting and placed all the material in a trash bag before removing the biohazard headpiece. The suit made a slight popping noise as she shook out her short hair, the golden locks glistening.

"I was just doing the dishes," she explained with a smile, paused near Sheldon's work desk. "But Sheldon's been feeling sick lately so I've taken over disinfecting everything and doing the dishes so his sickness doesn't spread. Sheldon and I couldn't agree as to whom would be the one responsible for cleaning chores… so we alternate weeks and use a biohazard suit since neither of us want to come in contact with any lingering bacteria."

Leonard squinted, looked up as if the answers to his silent questions were spelled in small letters on the ceiling. "Uh… right. That makes… sense, I guess." He added in a lower register so the others could not hear: "In your guys' world."

The short artist removed the rest of the biohazard suit right there in the living room. The act seemed oddly intimate to Leonard, who busied himself with studying Sheldon's face. His eyes were trained on the woman removing her outermost layers. The sound similar to that of a hissing snake garnered Leonard's attention away from Sheldon's odd creased brow. Alex had adorned cleaning gloves and sprayed down the inside of the suit with disinfectant. By God, Sheldon was probably beside himself with pleasure at the new cleanliness she brought to their residence.

Citrus smoke filled the room. Leonard restrained coughs but Sheldon and Alex seemed virtually immune to the too-clean odor.

"So what's going on, Leonard?" Alex asked, now coating the outside of the suit with disinfectant. "You seem awfully quiet. Is Penny okay? She had a lot to drink last night.""

"Oh, please," Sheldon whined, shutting the lid of his laptop promptly. It snapped loudly. "We don't need to bring up that fiasco. We've all been exposed to Penny in her, shall we say, less than reputable moments… And we don't need to hear Leonard talk anymore about their relationship. He talks about it incessantly at work, during dinner, game nights."

Alex threw arrows from her eyes directed at Sheldon's distracted stare. "I know, Sheldon. I'm usually there, too." Her tone bordered on annoyance but she delivered a mug of some hot beverage to Sheldon carefully anyway.

The memory of Penny's behavior last night, the rude comments she had spewed at the newest member of the group, unleashed a flurry of panic that had been previously knotted in Leonard's chest. "I really hope you're not angry with her. She didn't know what she was—" Then his mind flashed forward to the occurrences of the morning thus far. "Oh, screw it. I'm pissed at her anyway. Be mad at her if you want to."

Something in Leonard's tone stopped the spraying. Alex placed her project on the ground and faced Leonard, examining his expression closely. He felt as though his mother were scrutinizing him, peeling his mind open and peering into his brain to pick him apart.

"What happened?" Her tone was gentle, sweet, concerned. Though she might share some of Sheldon's odd intricacies, she had no problem expressing her feelings as a fully socialized person might. Leonard immediately felt a caramelized relief drip through his otherwise chalky emotions.

"She was showing me texts from Amy, who spent the night with Raj," he complained as if he were a child tattling to his mother. "Oh, and, she forgot to mention that she slept with Raj, too!"

Wrapped in his own frustration, Leonard completely forgot how the first portion of his story might affect others in the room.

The back of her wrist lying across his disproportionate forehead, Alex's eyebrows bunched as she studied Sheldon's reaction. His mouth made a tiny, trembling 'O.' His eyes were glassy and wide, in a frozen state of shock. She withdrew her hand.

Leonard had realized the thickness of the silence in the room and his hand fluttered to his nose, slid down to cover his mouth. "Oh, Sheldon. I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to find out like that."

"Amy?" Sheldon's voice was just barely above a whisper as he turned the full weight of his gaze to the other physicist. "Amy? Amy Farrah Fowler? My Amy?" He jerked back in his seat further with each annunciation.

"She can sleep with whomever she chooses as she isn't your Amy anymore, Sheldon," Alex reminded him tartly. Her gaze lingered hotly on his face for a beat before she told Leonard, "I'm sorry to hear that about Penny. What did she say when you asked her about it?"

"I didn't stick around long enough to hear whatever petty excuses she concocted to try to smooth over the situation," Leonard replied, his eyes cast down in hard shame.

Alex chewed on her lip, eyebrows knit together in concentration as she mulled over Leonard's words. Sheldon had remained in a state of shock before he shook his head and turned his whole body towards the shorter man.

"You were talking about Amy Farrah Fowler?"

"Yes, Sheldon. Amy spent the night with Raj. Just get over it, okay?"

Sheldon's mouth gaped before he replied sharply, "I listened to your Penny jibber jabber but you can't take a moment to answer a simple yes or no? I may not be well rehearsed in social protocol, but I know enough to be offended and to know when you're being selfish. When am I ever selfish with you?"

"How about all the time?" the former roommate quipped.

"Okay. Both of you," Alex hollered, "be quiet. You are both adults and need to handle your situations accordingly. Leonard, you're in a committed relationship with Penny and you need to listen to her side before jumping to conclusions. We don't mind having you here—"

"Speak for yourself," the praying-mantis-comparable scientist grunted.

"But you shouldn't just run away at the first sign of trouble. And Sheldon, you don't have a fever and you don't have a relationship with Amy. I can understand why you'd be upset that she is moving on. Your pride has taken a big hit but you have to accept that eventually this was going to happen anyway."

"I never expected her to settle for someone lesser than myself. Especially not Koothrappali."

"You think everyone is lesser than you, Sheldon," Leonard mumbled miserably, looking properly abashed.

"Leonard, I don't mean to be rude, but go home. Talk to Penny. I'm sure she's upset right now."

Leonard stood and paused, adjusted his glasses, his hoodie. "I guess you might be right. I'm just gonna—" He indicated the door and left Alex with her back to Sheldon.

She turned around slowly. Sheldon remained still as though the news of his former girlfriend had struck him dumb.

"What are you thinking?" Alex questioned softly. Her hands ached to wrap around his slender shoulders, to hold him to her chest so he could hear the way her heart skipped when they touched. It was with great difficulty that she returned to the pile of disinfectant and biohazard suit, gathered them in her lap, and sat on the floor in front of Sheldon.

He didn't reply at first. He made a few almost-starts with sharp intakes of breath and a lightning flash of blue aimed her way.

Seeing he wasn't going to speak after all, Alex offered, "Do you feel betrayed by Raj? I doubt that was his intention… Angry with Amy?"

"Oh I know just what Raj's intentions were." Sheldon paused. "Taking my and Leonard's leftovers. He is nothing but an echeneidae, often found suckling the flesh of various creatures. Well... He oft complains that his bed is insufficient for only one occupant and has been searching for another. It has been a rather cold winter…"

"Sheldon…" Alex sighed, her violet eyes conveying the trouble she felt. "I think they probably did more than try to keep one another warm."

"Do you think they—?"

"Yes…"

Sheldon took a long sip of air before asking quickly and quietly, "Held hands?"

Alex smiled sadly and shook her head at Sheldon. "I think you should talk to Amy if it's really bothering you. Let her… let her know how you feel. Women need that."

She wanted to tell him that it was okay for him to move on. She wanted to tell him that she could make it okay. Instead, she smiled encouragingly before she disappeared into her bedroom.