Chapter 4

They sat in silence as Sheldon finished his cobbler. While he chewed, he took the sight of Penny in; Tousled blonde hair, in a simple blue top, tights and plain blue flats. Simply Penny. She was looking at everything but him, her leg shaking.

Something is off, though. He swallowed the last of his treat. She's too quiet.

"You're too quiet."

"Last time someone spoke with food in their mouth, you got pretty fussy."

"But you weren't even there!" He huffed at her and put his fork down. "I have finished eating. Now, please enlighten me, Penny. Where am I, if I am not deceased? Why are you here, but not Leonard, who is my best friend, or Raj, who is my friend, or Howard, who is my close acquaintance?"

She gave him an exasperated sigh. "Typical Sheldon, so many questions. But before I answer, I have a question for you." Penny regarded him. "What is the last thing you remember?"

The corners of his mouth angled downward, and he cringed.

"…A blinding light. I was hit, presumably by a large motor vehicle with a more than careless driver. I remember crossing, and then immense pain…and then nothing." His voice grew quieter with every word.

A car of that size, and the velocity that it had been going, was enough to render his body unidentifiable. But here he was, clearly thinking. Unscathed. None of this was logical.

"Sheldon," He looked up at Penny, who stood and crossed her arms across her torso. "When you got hit, yea, you were banged up pretty bad." Her grammar caused his face to twitch, but he allowed her to continue. "But you were, are, still alive. Right now, your physical body is in a hospital."

He took her words and rolled them around his mind. No, that doesn't make sense. My PHYSICAL body? This is my physical body…I can feel. Taste. Hear. I'm right here.

"Look around you, Sheldon. Look closely."

And he did. It was then when he noticed the details. Namely, the little squiggles on the buildings, the designs he had noticed earlier. Leaning forward, he saw them for what they were.

Equations.

Everything, the walls of the building, the table, even the forks, had little equations etched on them. And they were not random. They were parts of the working formulas he had been trying to solve for months.

Then it dawned on him.

Penny bent down and whispered into his ear, "You're in that hospital bed right now. Surrounded by your friends and family. You can't wake up, because you're in a coma."

His breath hitched in his throat. Coma!

"Welcome to your mind, Moon Pie."

He strained to speak. "No one calls me Moon Pie but my Meemaw!"

Leonard shifted his feet as he stood by the doorway of Sheldon's hospital room. It had been 2 days since the accident, and, although the doctor assured them that the cerebral edema was reducing in size, he couldn't help but worry.

He turned to Stephanie for reassurance, but she said the same thing.

Leonard glanced at Penny, who was oblivious to his presence. She had been by Sheldon's side since the night of her arrival, quietly whispering words he could not catch to the lanky mummy-like figure.

"Penny, you can leave him for a while...go grab a bite to eat. It's not like he's going to go anywhere."

She looked up; her tired eyes a dull green.

"What if he wakes up?" It was the answer she gave whenever they tried to coax her away.

He scrunched his brows together, but said nothing as he sighed and turned to leave.

Sheldon followed Penny towards a small building several blocks from the café.

He had allowed the facts to sink in, and he recovered from his shock when he considered that perhaps walking around and exploring his mind in this manner was not as bad as it seemed.

Certainly, the knowledge that he was still able to reason meant that nothing of vital importance had been harmed after the accident.

She explained that his mind took the form of Sheldonopolis (The very city he built in playing Sim City) because it was where his thoughts felt safest. He had wanted to protest, but she gave him no chance when she walked away from him.

As far as Penny's presence goes, she explained that only he knew the answer, albeit subconsciously ("Like, the deepest part of it!" As she had put it.). His mind had chosen her form to 'guide' him back into consciousness.

"I don't see how that would help me. Your working knowledge, compared to mine, is almost non-existent."

She shrugged at him as they entered the lobby, her eyes searching for something. "Maybe your mind knows that the only way to you waking up means I'd have to go junior rodeo on it." She reached underneath a large couch and pulled out a whiteboard.

Handing it to him (Along with his favorite Expo marker) she continued. "Maybe there's another reason."

"There could be a multitude of reasons, Penny." He uncapped the marker and poised, mantis-like, in front of the board. "But I still cannot, for the life of me, see how YOU could act as a responsible guide. If anything, I would have thought Amy Farrah Fowler a much more fitting choice of guidance."

Penny threw him a glare.

"But I digress." He began to draw out a map of Sheldonopolis. For a city with so many elements and venues, it was actually quite small.

Penny reached over his shoulder, arm brushing against his cheek, as she placed a finger on an unmarked square. "That's where we are now. And this," Her flinger slid upwards. "This is unknown territory. Beyond City Hall, it's darkness. We should totally avoid that."

"What happens if we don't?" He could feel her roll her eyes at him.

"You know what happens when you mount up you flying mount in World of Warcraft, and you fly to the very top of the light pillar in Shattrath City, and then dismount?"

Sheldon nodded slowly. "You die." After a really fun fall.

"Yup. But no one's here to rez you."

He was about to make a comment, but the ground lurched and jolted. The building began to crumble.

"Balls!" Penny swore under her breath.

Grabbing Penny's wrist and pocketing the marker, he quickly assessed that they would be able to make it out before being crushed by cracked ceiling descending down upon them.

"What's going on Penny?" The panic in her eyes told him enough. She doesn't know either.

He pulled her along and they ran to towards the door. Before they made it to the entrance, however, floor caved and they both fell into the gaping darkness below.

Note: Penny's shirt in question is the blue top she wore in The Spaghetti Catalyst. I kinda figured that Sheldon's mind wouldn't have really picked up on her sense of fashion. _ I was tempted to have him imagine her in a towel the entire time though...