Chapter Two
He had to admit to himself, this was going to be hard. Even building his Sonic Death Ray - which consequently had not, so to say, worked - seemed more straightforward than this. Love had always alluded Sheldon. Human relationships in general always had. He knew that he loved his mother - and he supposed his siblings... But that was natural. Falling in love was an entirely different matter.
Penny had to fall for him, it was inevitable now that he had made up his mind. How could she not? He saw no faults with himself. It was dubious to think she would assume otherwise. Leonard's reaction to his plan was completely overdone. This could work. Would work.
He decided he had to observe Penny carefully now, to see what she enjoyed and hated. He had to know what... 'made her tick' as his mother would say, so that he could figure out. Penny was like a very very complex math problem. Solvable, but it was going to take some time getting there.
He was going to need a new whiteboard.
Knock knock knock
'Penny.'
Knock knock knock
'Penny.'
Knock knock knock
'Penny.'
'Sheldon.' She sighed, swinging the door open and leaning against it tiredly.
'I respected your rule regarding the time I am allowed to visit you.'
'I see that. What do you want sweetie? I'm kinda tired, I wanna go back to bed.'
'Well what I want may take some time. Perhaps if you're tired we could retire for your bedroom for the duration of this.'
Penny froze. What was wrong with her? She puffed some air through the corner of her mouth to blow a strand of hair away from her eyes, but it just fell right back. He resisted the urge to brush it behind her ear.
'Sheldon, are you... Coming on to me?' She asked slowly, clutching onto the door knob.
It took him a while to process the meaning of that. He finally realized and his face grew in shock. 'Oh no, Penny! I didn't mean for you to perceive that as some sort of sexual innuendo... I just thought you would appreciate lying down if you were tired... I didn't mean for-'
'Sheldon, honey, it's okay!' She laughed. 'This in itself has woken me up. Come on in.'
He felt compelled to apologize more, but he wanted the moment to pass as soon as possible, and so he shuffled past her. He sat in his chosen seat and watched her fall down into a cross - legged position on the sofa. She was wearing short pyjama bottoms that had cookie hearts on them, and a tank top that said I heart Nerds. He recognised the brand of clothes but chose not to comment. Her hair was messy, she had a 'bed head' as he had heard Leonard refer to it before. but it didn't look... Bad. It almost suited her in a way. He realised, not for the first time, how actually aesthetically pleasing Penny actually was.
She was quite... Pretty. And although he felt it might be a challenge to get her to fall for him, he had begun to realize that his emotions would have to be brought into this at some point. Which scared and confused him. What is he fell for Penny? Then he would never have the focus needed to complete the task of winning her heart. He would end up like Leonard, singing sad songs and petting cats. And he couldn't afford that if he wanted a child that would win a Nobel Prize.
He made up his mind; he would do absolutely everything in his power not to fall for Penny.
He decided to start this mission by focusing on the fact she had odd socks on.
Oh, Penny.