"Sweet Caroline… Good times never seemed so good."

The song lyrics echoed in the kitchen, as Amy joyfully moved her lips following her tune.

"So good!" She continued, dipping the bread into batter and moving it to the frying pan. "So good!" She sang again, twirling back to the counter.

Only less than twelve hours had passed since she and Sheldon had to run away from their waterlogged apartment, but it already felt so far away. Amy smirked recalling the very enjoyable awakening of that morning: lost in Sheldon's embrace, their naked bodies intertwined into the sheets, in a bed she had barely hoped to sleep in. Even more surprisingly, he was still sound asleep when she had tried to wake him up with her kisses. So she had slipped from his hold, retrieved a pair of underpants to wear under Leonard's Hufflepuff t-shirt (she totally planned to steal it or ask for it as a present) and snuck off barefoot to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

"Something smells good! Are those French toasts, P- Oooh. I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

As soon as he entered the room, Leonard immediately turned his back to her, while Amy remained paralyzed on her spot.

"I- I didn't think you would have woken up so early," she stammered. Instinctively, her hands tried to pull down the hem of the tee in an attempt to cover as much of her exposed legs as possible. She also mentally cursed herself for having decided to exit the room undressed like that.

"Uhm, yeah. It smelled good and I woke up," Leonard admitted. "Could - could this help?"

Never turning around, he had moved toward the drawers and opened one, pulling out an apron he was now blindly handing to Amy.

Amy happily reached for it and rushed to wear it. Thankfully it was long enough to cover her down to her knees. "Thank you," she said. "It's on. You can turn now, if you want."

"Batman. It suits you," He observed, finally looking at her. Amy lowered her stare, and noticed the bat symbol. "Oh. Thank you?"

"So…" Leonard tentatively began to break the awkward silence that had followed, "How's Sheldon not up yet? Doctor Who should have started in a while," he asked.

Not daring to look at him again, Amy slowly returned to the stove to continue with the toasts. "I persuaded him to give more credit to the DVR," she explained, stopping just in time before admitting how now Saturday awakenings were reserved to cuddling.

"Another thing you succeed at where I failed," Leonard congratulated with a smile. "Have you also managed to change his breakfast schedule?" He asked then, hinting at the French toasts.

"Oh no. He will take his milk and cereal later. According to our Relationship Agreement, we take an extra serving of French toasts or scrambled eggs if we have coitu-" She stopped talking straightaway, but it was too late.

"Uhm," Leonard jabbered, not sure how to address that information. He just briefly shivered at the realization that he had heard enough to not be surprised of Sheldon's will of gaining additional energy in the morning.

"Good morning everyone!"

Sheldon's cheerful greeting was welcomed by both Leonard and Amy with a sigh of relief. He joined them in the kitchen and approached Amy to peck her on the lips. Penny showed up a few moments later, muttering a much less enthusiastic "Morning," and sleepily kissing her husband. Her look brightened a little though when she noticed the toasts. "Oh, nice. How's that?"

Amy glanced at Leonard. "Please, don't ask," he told his wife. She looked back at him confused, and so did Sheldon. Eventually Penny decided not to investigate further, and getting to the coffee maker she spoke to their guests. "So, did you sleep well?"

"Wonderfully!" Sheldon exclaimed.

Penny raised her eyebrows, surprised. "Really?" She asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Yeah. Why shouldn't I?"

Leonard went to get some coffee for himself as well. He took a sip of it, trying to figure out if he really wanted the discussion to go there. He decided for it, considering that things couldn't possibly be more awkward than how they already have been.

"There was a little, uhm, noise last night," Leonard suggested. "Penny and I did have some trouble getting to sleep."

Sheldon turned to Amy, hoping she could give him some hints. Instead, he saw she was blushing and nervously getting her attention to the toasts in the pan. He looked back at Leonard and Penny, "That's odd," he said, "I haven't heard anything. We truly had a very nice sleep."

"Sleep?!" Penny replied. "Do you two really sleep? When?"

Sheldon was more and more perplexed. He looked again to Amy, who sighed in disbelief of her fiancé's lack of understanding. "Sheldon - they heard us."

"Uh? What do you mean?"

Amy turned off the stove and picked the now-ready toasts. She then took a deep breath and hoped not to faint for the shame. "Sheldon, they heard us having sex."

"Oh… Oh!" Sheldon finally got it, but then another doubt hit him. "Then why do you seem uncomfortable?" He asked her. "Wasn't this the plan?"

"Plan?" Leonard snapped. "You did it on purpose?!"

"Not really," Sheldon calmly responded. "I told Amy it wasn't a good idea, but then she reminded me how you forced me to hear your coital activities every so often in the past, so I agreed to proceed."

Penny and Leonard both threw incredulous gazes to Amy, whose face had already assumed a deep reddish shade. "I... I… I didn't think we would have been so loud," she tried to defend herself, "I'm so very sorry," she apologized.

She and Sheldon exchanged a quick look. She nodded in the direction of Leonard and Penny, frowning in a clear invitation to Sheldon to apologize as well. He stared back at her, and finally replied, "I'm not going to apologize. We haven't done anything wrong, and they deserved whatever they heard."

Penny shook her head, and smiled. "I can't believe we're having this conversation… Anyway, it doesn't matter Sheldon. We're fine."

Amy took the plate with the toasts and offered it to her and Leonard. "Do you want to share?"

Penny's smile turned in a proud smirk directed to Amy. "Please, they are all yours. You'll probably need all that extra energy supply…" Then, since Amy had limited to retire the plate and blushing even harder, she came closer to her and patted her arm, "Almost an hour! You haven't told me that," she congratulated.

Leonard cleared his throat. Penny assumed he wanted to contradict her and turned skeptical to him.

"They… it lasted way more than an hour," her husband explained to her with a gulp. "You woke up after a while."

Penny froze, and almost remained open mouthed. "Uhm, I … oh, Amy," she just managed to babble. Amy picked up one toast and took a bite, actually trying to hide the satisfied grimace that had finally worked its way up from the embarrassment.

Sheldon shrugged. "Really? I always lose track of time, especially if I linger too much on Amy's bosom. Once I spent almost an hour just smooshing around those lovely breasts like pizza dough."

Amy almost choked with the toast's bite. She grabbed her coffee from Penny's hand, drank a little bit of it, and returned the cup to her. "Sheldon, maybe we should get ready."

"What? I haven't eaten yet," he protested. Amy took his hand and started to pull him toward the corridor. "We'll take something before leaving. Let's go," she insisted.

"But Amy-" Sheldon tried again, but Amy just dragged him harder. He renounced to any further protest and let her lead him back to their bedroom.

Penny and Leonard observed the scene silently. They hadn't the time to react in any way, when Sheldon came back and headed to his old desk. He collected something from a lower drawer and placed it on the kitchen island.

"I thought you may need this in the next days."

He left again, and Leonard couldn't help but roll his eyes once he realized that Sheldon had just offered them his noise-canceling headphones.

ii.

Much to Sheldon's dismay, most of the French toasts ended up being devoured by Leonard and Penny, as Amy made sure Sheldon couldn't have any further occasion of embarrassing them, at least in her presence. They hurried to meet their landlord and check the damages to their place, then spent the rest of the morning trying to collect or secure as much of their belongings they could. Their ways parted then in the afternoon, when Penny fulfilled her promise to go shopping with Amy and Leonard had reluctantly done the same with Sheldon.

Sheldon, however, was done with his purchasing much earlier than Amy, so now he and Leonard waited for their significant others lazily playing Mario Kart slumped on the couch.

"How long do you think the girls will still need to return home? I'm hungry," Sheldon asked.

Leonard shrugged. "I don't know. You may anticipate laundry while we're waiting."

"I already did it as soon as we returned. I surely wouldn't have all the shop's germs enter my bedroom."

"Oh. I missed it, sorry." He guessed Sheldon had done it when he was taking a nap, the result of the sleep deprivation he had suffered during the previous night.

"We're back!"

They both turned to see Penny and Amy entering the apartment laden with shopping bags. They paused the game and stood to help her out.

"You are wearing a dress," Sheldon immediately observed looking at Amy. She smiled at him and blushed slightly. Among the needed nightgowns, cardigans, and underwear, Penny had eventually succeeded in persuading her to expand her clothes' variety a little. Only small successes, of course, but in the end she felt satisfied with the result.

"Yes, she is," Penny confirmed. "She's so cute in it, isn't she?"

Sheldon looked at Amy better. She was wearing a light, white dress with a pinkish floral pattern with short sleeves, that extended to her knees. To his surprise, she did not wear a cardigan.

"It's not date night. Why are you wearing a dress?" He ended up saying.

Amy's smile slid away. He noticed it, and understood his mistake.

"I meant, it's odd to see you like that. I'm not saying you are not pretty," he admitted, "It suits you."

Her smile returned bigger and brighter. She turned to Penny, who returned a satisfied smile, and together they left to the bedroom to drop off the bags. On their way back, Amy offered to prepare dinner with Sheldon. The latter actually had tried to protest and begged to end his game against Leonard, but Amy needed only a few words to send him behind the stove with her.

As the two started the preparations, Leonard and Penny sat on the couch. "It seemed you had a little more success this time with Amy's wardrobe," he told his wife, careful not to be heard by their friends in the kitchen.

Penny nodded, "Yup!" She confirmed, not without some measure of pride. "I'm particularly satisfied with some of her new nightgowns…"

"Really? I thought you wanted to sleep at night…" Leonard joked.

Penny shook her head giggling, then turned to face him. "You still didn't tell me if you like my new shirt," she urged, looking down to the silky, colorful piece of clothing she was now revealing to Leonard as new.

"Of course!" He immediately answered, "So much so that I'll be more than happy to help you undress later…"

"Ooh, are you suggesting to beat our guests at their game?"

Penny leaned over and kissed him. "You can say it!"

Busy in their conversation, they didn't realize that Amy had shortly left with her phone in hand to talk to someone. She now returned to the room and asked for everyone's attention.

"That was the landlord," Amy explained. "He wanted to confirm to us that they'll need up to three weeks to fix our apartment."

"Really?!" Sheldon complained. "That's a long time. Well, good thing we are close. We can keep an eye on the progress of work."

In their minds, everyone else in the room felt sorry for the poor workers. Then Penny and Leonard exchanged a look and felt sorry for themselves as well. Amy caught their worried expressions and tried to reassure them. "You know, if we are going to stay here a little longer, maybe we could set a few ground rules, agree on some schedules…"

Sheldon dropped the knife he was using and almost jump on the spot. "Schedules!" He cried.

Amy already knew where it was heading to. "We talked about it. No bathroom schedules, Sheldon."

He pouted in response. "Fine, but what should we schedule then?"

"Forget about the schedules," Leonard said, "But I agree with the ground rules. For instance, always wear a complete outfit when in a common area." As he spoke, Amy looked away and had the sudden urge to reprise chopping some carrots.

"Oh, and no noises after ten at night," Penny continued. "And before seven in the morning."

Sheldon stared at them skeptically. "There's no need to specify that." Penny raised her eyebrows. He got that he needed to be more specific. "You are never awake that early."

"C'mon guys, we can do this," Leonard cut short.

"We promise you we'll be more careful," Amy agreed. "Right, Sheldon?"

He snorted. "Right, even if I haven't done anything wrong…"

iii.

Satisfied with the grin of someone who just had some very pleasant thirty minutes with his wife, Leonard left their bedroom and headed to the bathroom. He let out a tired yawn as he opened the door and reached for the light switch… until his hand froze as soon as he realized it was already on. "Please, no…"

"Leonard!"

As soon as he heard Sheldon's voice calling his name, he knew he was right to be afraid. He looked for the courage to raise his stare, and saw them.

"What…?" Leonard widened his eyes, not really sure of what he was looking at. A part of him just wanted to shut the door and run away, at least in respect of Amy, but the truth was that he just couldn't. Never would he have thought to find Sheldon Cooper sitting in the bathtub, his girlfriend leaning against his chest, relaxed expressions in between the soap bubbles.

Amy turned her head to Sheldon. "You said they were sleeping!" she blamed him.

"It's not my fault if Leonard has the bladder of an eighty-year old. And by the way, you insisted to move up our Sunday bath to tonight."

Finally, Leonard reacted and hurried outside the bathroom. He almost slammed the door, and leaned against it. The following weeks were going to be ever so tricky, weren't they?