CHAPTER:

It was easily done. Leonard was so engrossed in Penny's smile, he barely noticed what he was eating off the spoon. Within half an hour, he had taken up residence in the bathroom, and Sheldon had pulled out another blackboard, and offered Penny a piece of chalk, and began scribbling on the flat surface, while Penny sniffed the chalk with a small smile, thinking of the first morning of school, she had been young and in pigtails, the smell of the chalk... Before she figured out there was more to it than spelling and adding simple numbers.

"Are you paying attention?" He asked, barely glancing over his shoulder at her. "Your life may depend on your acting skills. Furthermore, MY life might depend on it, though if worst comes to worst I shall simply abandon you and take the first train for the east coast, the the first boat to Germany. I'm certain I could get my teaching job back."

She blinked and focused. "Why would you want to go back to Germany?"

"Well, it's extremely far away from my mother, for one thing." He squinted at the board and tilted his head. "This will never do."

"What? Why?"

"Because this plan requires you to pretend to be someone's girlfriend and not a client, and you've already said you won't sleep in Leonard's room, and I assure you, you won't be sleeping in mine."

"Couldn't we just put my cot in one of the rooms?" She didn't really care about Kripke's death cooties, but she didn't like the idea of being alone in the living room anymore. They hadn't heard the body being pulled up the stairs, or being leaned against the door, and Sheldon had extremely sensitive hearing, she probably wouldn't wake up at all if someone came in that quietly. "Or in the bathroom maybe?"

Sheldon raised his eyebrows thoughtfully but then noticed the ice cream bowl and sighed. "I'm afraid the bathroom will be uninhabitable to all but Leonard for quite some time."

"Well then, I'll sleep in your bed, and you can sleep in Leonard's, and he can sleep in the bathroom." Penny smiled brightly. "Problem solved."

"How does that solve our problem! You'll be in my room! You might wreck my comic books!"

"Well, you could always join me?" Penny batted her eyelashes at him, grabbing his arm and pulling him after her, as he frantically wiped off the board, he could hear the sink running in the bathroom, Leonard would be out soon.

He shook her off, just as the door opened.

"What's going on guys?" Leonard asked innocently.

"Oh, just convincing Sheldon to come to bed with me." Penny purred. "In his bed."

"You were not!" Sheldon said loudly, his left eye twitching like crazy. "You WILL not sleep in my bed!"

"Who said anything about sleeping?" Penny winked, enjoying both the flabbergasted look on Leonard's face and near apoplectic look on Sheldon's, as well as the considerable amount of twitching going on.

Leonard pressed his hand to his forehead and went back to the bathroom, mumbling about fever.

The two remaining in the room narrowed their eyes at each other in a stare off.

"I would let you sleep in my bed." Penny pouted, trying one of her best tricks.

His eyes lit up. "That's brilliant. Yes of course." he dashed into his room and came out within a minutes, a suitcase with him. "I'll stay at your place, and clean it, and find the shoes. I can't believe I didn't think of it before. Good Bye!" He waved, walking out the front door.

Penny stared after him wide eyed. "But... but..." She paused. It could use a thorough cleaning. She'd get to sleep behind two locked doors. She didn't really want to share a bed with him anyways, she was pretty sure he was one of those guys who slept like a steel beam and were just a comfy, she'd just been teasing him, because that was really enjoyable, and he'd brought it on himself with the girlfriend crack.

Shrugging, she locked the door and went to go explore his room.

"Wackadoodle."

~S~

He went up the stairs slowly, deep in thought. There was a high probability that her flat had already been looted, the black shoes found and gone, and he would not be able to tell, because of the mess it already was.

He had been itching to tidy it since he had first seen it though, how could anyone live in a three block radius of such a mess and breath calmly? Chaos breeds chaos, it was no wonder dead people were being leaned up against his door. Once it was tidied, it would all die down. The shoes would be located, handed over, the large man would be caught with the shoes by the police, and hopefully in the resulting brouhaha, the red shoes would turn up. It was even entirely possible that she had the red shoes in her possession after all, and had just not been able to find them.

Wincing, he paused at the door. That would be wishful thinking, for certain. He opened the door and stepped inside. Clutter and mess stared back at him. With a sigh that was more anticipatory than dismayed, he set to work...

~P~

She crawled into his bed with a sigh. It wasn't that the cot had been uncomfortable, really, she could sleep anywhere, but it was impossible to deny that his bed was extremely comfortable. It smelled of soap, and something like a new book, and a little bit of chalk, just like it's owner. That said owner thought she would be sleeping on the cot in his room, and not in his bed, did not bother her in the least. If anything, it made it even more enjoyable.

~S~

He sniffed the air around him appreciatively. At last, every surface gleamed, every paper was stacked, organized, and placed in it's proper cubby on the roll top desk. Personal letters, most started but not finished, and addressed to her mother, her brother, and a few short ones to her father, were put into the portable writing desk she had, and carefully set away. The letter had held nothing of importance, to him or anyone else, which why they hadn't been mailed he reckoned. He'd even been able to deduce her level of frustration during the writing process by how far each crumpled piece had been thrown. He had found several pairs of shoes, which were all now lined up the wardrobe in the bedroom, the small kitchenette had been cleaned, scrubbed, scoured and altogether disinfected. The furniture, which had been let with the flat, was not new but was in good condition, the bath held the older style claw foot tub, and his eyes positively gleamed at the thought of having a bath knees submerged... As soon as the place was spotless, the whole place, with fresh sheets on the bed (he'd found them in the wardrobe, folded neatly, it appeared she wasn't really a slob, just disorganized) he'd done so. He'd been unable to completely rid the space of the pervading smell of femaleness, but he had organized her bath salts by strength of smell, with the strongest by the window (and farthest from the tub). His bath, the third of the day, but after the cleaning he felt he needed and deserved it, had allowed him more time for reflection. He had not found the shoes. He had found many pairs of shoes, even black shoes, but not black shoes, specially made, with a compartment in the heel. The probability that her place had been raided already was now almost a certainty, and he regretted not having placed a watcher on her place sooner. How had he missed that? What a rookie mistake. And yet, it was not inconceivable that he had not discovered all of Penny's hiding places, perhaps hope remained. And if not, there was a nice clean sheeted bed waiting for him, far away from Leonard's indigestion and Penny's feminine whiles, and he fully intended to have the best sleep of his life, having just conquered the mess from hell.

It was sometime after midnight that he heard the door creak open, saw the shadow making it's way towards him, heard the menacing whisper, demanding the whereabouts of the black shoes.