Chapter 9

Raj had not been able to tell Penny how he felt about the accident. Hadn't been able to comfort her like the others have.

If only the hospital would let me drink inside…

He felt awkward, and, quite frankly, useless.

But no one ever said he was a bad observer. He had seen her, hunched over her laptop typing away so diligently, sighing over and over. He caught a glimpse of what she was doing when he walked in on her sleeping one night, but he looked no further in fears of her punching in the throat. Or my samosas, he thought.

So when Penny entrusted her laptop to him yesterday, Raj went through it.

That was how he discovered what exactly she had been looking at.

Filled with determination, Raj spent the day gathering some of Sheldon's belongings to bring to the hospital in order to aid Penny. He wanted to help her in every way possible, despite not being able to speak to her.

He heard the distinct click of the lock behind him as he made his way back to Sheldon's room.

"Oh, hey Howard!" He called out.

Howard took in the spectacle before him, an eyebrow arching until it disappeared underneath his neatly cut bangs.

"Hey, Raj. What's going on?" He shut the door and sat on the edge of the couch careful not to step on the boxes strewn about.

Raj reappeared cradling several comic books in his arms. He waded through the pool of boxes that lay on the floor of Leonard and Sheldon's apartment and sat with a 'plop' on Sheldon's spot.

"Ah, cushy for my tushy." He smiled and handed Howard half of the stack. He noticed that his face was still giving him a questioning look. "Ok, I know this is gonna sound weird, but I know what Penny has been up to and I am helping her!"

Howard peered into one of the boxes by his feet. "By bringing her Sheldon's toys?"

"And comic books!" Raj recounted how he found out about Penny's sensory stimulation theory, hoping that the engineer would find it as much of a good idea as he did.

"I dunno, Raj…I don't wanna have him wake up and give me strikes, or worse, banishment, if he finds out we've been touching his stuff." His longing glances at the comic books told Raj otherwise.

Raj shrugged. On some part, he understood Howard's reluctance. Sheldon's class was hard, and who knows how big Sheldon's mushroom cloud would be if he did discover his belongings had been in hands other than his.

"Dude, at least help me organize some of these things. Look, he has all these cool issues that even I don't have!" He held up The Amazing Spider Man: issue 129.

"We know you guys have issues, but I wouldn't call his cool."

They shared a look, and Howard waggled his eyebrows. Raj shook his head.

"You know what I meant dude. Don't tell me you're going to pass up the opportunity to look though his collection."

"I wasn't!" Howard pulled a box towards him and began to fill it. A minute of silence passed between them. "Alright, I'm in. Any opportunity, even if it risks invoking Sheldon's wrath, is way better than spending the day with my mother anyway. She wanted to drag me to the new yoga class they're holding at the Jewish Community Center." He shuddered.

"And will you help me bring all of this to Penny?"

"Only if you call my mom and tell her I can't go."

Raj pouted. "Deal."