Leonard entered the comic book store. It was new comic book night and he decided to be the bigger man and go get them as opposed to cringing at Sheldon's place. Besides, after the blow up with Penny he needed something as a distraction.

He wandered around the corner and saw Raj and Sheldon's friends but no sign of Sheldon or Howard. With a big breath he approached the astrophysicist.

"Hey," he said overenthusiastically. "Where's Howard?"

"He said he was busy doing something with Sheldon," Raj replied.

"You mean Sheldon's not here?" Leonard glanced around the store. "But it's new comic book night! He never misses it."

"Must be pretty important then."

"Well, I suppose I'll pick up his comics."

"Actually, he asked Tracy to pick them up." Raj indicated his extra big stack of comic books. "I've got Howard's."

"Ah. Okay. Well, I guess I'll go get my own." Leonard went to the wall for his comic books, all the while feeling even lonelier than when he came in.

XXX

"This is a good idea," said Amy to Penny as the former was in her bedroom. "We haven't really had a night out together since I got back. Normally Bernadette's along but since she broke up with Howard she's been kind of a drag."

"Well no duh. They're getting a divorce," tsked Penny as she waited in the living room. Sometimes she just couldn't believe Amy. For someone who was friendless her entire life she had a snobbish, exclusionary side to her that often sought to chase other people away from Penny and her.

"Still, she could be a little more upbeat about it. I mean it's just Howard." Amy came into the living room with her purse.

"Howard's not as bad as you think."

"It's not like you weren't thinking it too, bestie."

"I dunno. I think Howard's changed," Penny said as Amy opened the apartment door.

"Regardless, this night isn't about Howard or Sheldon or Leonard the two-timing jerkface." Penny stepped into the hall and Amy locked up. "Tonight is a time to celebrate our sisterhood. And then we bash the bastards."

"Sounds like fun," Penny said enthusiastically.

The women went down the hall and around the corner to the elevator. It arrived and they descended to the lobby.

"So have a place in mind?" asked Amy.

"I was thinking about The Townhouse. They make wicked martinis," said Penny as she pulled out her phone.

"I leave the choosing of drinking establishments up to you and your liver," smirked Amy as she popped the locks and got into her car.

Penny smiled as she got in. She quickly sent off a text and then put her phone away and buckled up.

"Let's get this started," she grinned.

XXX

In the back stairwell Sheldon checked his phone as a text came in.

"They're gone," he said to Howard. "Commence Operation Gollum."

"Commencing it is," said Howard and the two men exited the staircase and made their way to Amy's door.

Howard pulled out his thieves picks and quickly undid the lock. The pair entered and quietly closed the door. Sheldon beelined for Amy's laptop and booted it up.

"Look around for any supplementary evidence while I work," said Sheldon.

"Understood." Howard looked around the living room but there wasn't much to see. At least, unlike Bernadette, Amy had some things that were personable to her but he became a little unsettled at the amount of monkey memorabilia. It was one thing if she thought them cute and saw them at the zoo. Quite another when she was poisoning them before killing them for their brains.

He wandered into the bedroom and all seemed normal. Howard went to the side table to look at a framed picture of Sheldon and Amy. She had a big grin on her face while Sheldon looked reserved but pleased. They looked happy. But then again, on the outside, Howard and Bernadette looked happy, too.

Howard noted a large rectangular shape under Amy's blankets. He turned them back to see a rice bag covered with—

"My God," he whispered. He pulled out his phone and took a picture before turning back and smoothing out the covers. Howard then got the heck out of there.

"Sheldon," he said in a strange voice. "Did you leave a t-shirt here?"

"Why would I do that?" Sheldon asked distractedly as he finished up what he was doing.

Howard showed him the picture he took of the t-shirt.

"So there's my non-striped Green Lantern shirt!" Sheldon gasped. His eyes narrowed. "Only, what's inside it?"

"A bag of rice."

"A bag of—Why would she stuff my shirt like that?" Sheldon sputtered.

"You forgot the 'and then sleeps with it in her bed' part," Howard said. He shook his head. "If Penny ever calls me creepy again I'll refer to exhibit A," he snorted as he held up his phone before tucking it in his pocket. "Got everything?"

"Locked and loaded." Sheldon turned off the laptop and took out his flash drive.

The pair turned off the light and exited the apartment.

XXX

"To us," Amy cheered and both she and Penny clinked glasses. "Two successful professionals and the idiot men we love."

"Amen." Penny took a healthy swig and set her glass on the table.

"You know, we should really invite Emily out to ladies nights. After all, she is Rajesh's girlfriend and we are all with the guys. Well, more or less."

"I'll ask him to have her text me," said Penny.

"Although don't ask Sheldon's girlfriend," Amy added as she rolled her olive around her glass with a toothpick. "I don't think she'll be around long." Penny's back stiffened.

"Why do you say that?" she asked nonchalantly.

"It's obvious they don't have anything in common besides intercourse." Amy took a sip of her drink. "It's not like you can sustain a relationship on that." She raised an eyebrow. "Yourself excluded of course."

"Leonard and I have more in common than just sex," Penny replied automatically.

"Like what?"

"Anyways, Sheldon's pretty happy with Martha."

"He's having intercourse. Of course he's ecstatic," Amy frowned. "I'm sure he finds it every bit as liberating and wonderful as I told him it would be."

Silence.

"Amy, I think we should just leave the guys to their own thing," Penny began. "I mean I'm away from Los Robles now so there's no reason to go there. Sheldon has his own group of friends he's made so really there's no need to see him at all."

"Penny, do you know what it's like to connect with someone?" asked Amy. "Sheldon and I have a relationship of the mind. He said there was no one more like him than me."

"But you said you didn't respect him," Penny replied, confused.

"How he treated me, yes. But in hindsight I can see he was going down swinging." Again she played with the olive. "My social experiments and subtle pressuring got him to loosen his OCD-like compulsions." She shook her head. "I could fault myself about this. If I only knew how close he was to having intercourse I would have held out."

"Or maybe not. Maybe you and Sheldon were only meant to be friends. I mean you said yourself that you had a relationship of the mind. Maybe that's what works best and he finds his, uh, relationship of the heart and body somewhere else."

"He said he loved me," Amy said firmly. "Penny, I put four years of work into him. I knew he was a flight risk at the beginning but after the Valentine's Day train trip I thought he was solid."

"So why did you dump him?"

"I wanted him to see how meaningless his life was without me," Amy sniffed. "I'd replaced a lot of his hobbies with date nights and spaghetti with cut up hotdogs dinners. His career was settling down into stable monotony so he could spend more time with me. Everything was going according to my five year plan." Here she scowled. "Except for his love of comic books. Couldn't shake him of that. And here we have Martha who collects them too. Using her knowledge of spandex-clad heroes with disproportionate cleavage and ridiculous names to lure Sheldon away from my nest."

"Yeah that sucks," Penny said. "Look, there are other guys out there—"

"But none like Sheldon."

"That's true."

"It's funny. I always thought Sheldon was like a sexy praying mantis," mused Amy. "Did you know that the females of the species eat their mates?" She stabbed the olive and held it up. "Kind of gives some food for thought, huh?" She popped the olive into her mouth and chewed.

Penny gave an awkward smile and took another large gulp of martini.

XXX

Sheldon was at his computer, adding the finishing touches to his email, when his phone buzzed.

Penny: successful?

scooperphd: Very much so. Thank you.

Penny: np. btw Amy is nutz. Guess her mom didn't have her tested. :)

scooperphd: LOL

Penny: nini

Sheldon set his phone aside and scanned his email once more before clicking 'send'. He sat back and smirked. All he had to do was wait on the Amy front.

Right now he had more important things to do.

xTBBTx

Martha checked the sight on her laser gun against a poster and pulled the trigger. A red dot appeared on the forehead of some busty blonde woman wearing camo gear and holding up a laser gun.

"Too bad that wasn't Amy," chuckled Abby as she came up to her friend.

"Tell me about it," Martha grumbled. "I'm looking behind doors and over my shoulder in the parking lot to see if I'm being followed by that psycho."

"Maybe you ought to carry some pepper spray or something."

"Got it." Martha sighed. "Well, I was wondering what was wrong with Sheldon and why he was still single. Now I know."

"You mean you're going to dump him?" asked Abby as she tied a black kerchief over her mouth and nose.

"No. I just never thought I'd have to kill someone." They both chuckled.

"As a bright side you're friends with a geography major. I can plot out the best place to bury her that urban planning wouldn't get to for at least fifty years," Abby winked.

"I'll hold you to it." Martha checked her watch. "Okay, we're up. Time to put down Robin and Nicole."

Both ladies slipped into the darkened obstacle room and spread out. Given the years they'd played together they knew to keep a healthy distance from each other but not so much that someone could get between them.

The hunt was on and about a half hour in Abby had finally potted Robin. The general crowd would be in shortly so that didn't leave much time to find Nicole.

Martha crept her way into her favorite spot behind a waist-high wall. It gave her adequate cover straight on and she could see what was what on either side. Very rarely had she been snuck up upon. Usually the stalker had to be really good and—

A red dot appeared on her left cheek.

Martha turned, expecting Nicole but instead it was—

"Penny?" she gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." She looked behind her. "Coast's clear." She moved aside and a tall, black-clad man slipped by and settled by Martha.

"Sheldon?" Martha asked as he lifted up his balaclava.

"We have to talk," he said just as the red security lights flashed and an emergency horn sounded indicating that the general population was entering the room.

"Now?"

"Now."

They both ducked down behind the wall.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I miss you."

"It's been two days. I said we'd hang out on the weekend," she said with a smirk.

"Up until two days ago we haven't been apart."

"Of course we have. We work at different places and live at our own apartments."

"But that doesn't mean I've felt apart from you," he said. "I did on Tuesday and I don't like it."

Martha's smirk faded and in an instant they came together and kissed.

"Hey, you gonna get all kissy face or give me a hand here?" snorted Penny as she picked off a target.

"Ready, Ms. Romanov?" Sheldon said to Martha with a crooked smile.

"After you, Mr. Barnes," Martha chuckled.

xTBBTx

"Come on, little one," Amy cooed to the brain she was slicing. "Let's see a brain tumor. Mama wants a brain tumor."

At her desk her work laptop began to chime as a Skype call came in.

"Huh." Amy put down her scalpel and popped off her gloves before wheeling her chair over to her computer. She saw the name and clicked on.

"Hello Faisal. How are you?"

"Don't be coy with me you harlot," Faisal growled with a heavy scowl on his face.

"What are you talking about?" asked Amy, confused.

"How nice of you to be engaged to me. I fund your lab. But who fills your heart? Sheldon Cooper."

Amy blanched.

"It was just a fling," she said quickly.

"Oh really? So these aren't real?" He flashed Amy a series of pictures of her and Sheldon.

"Where did you get those?" she gasped.

"So you're not denying it," Faisal growled as he disgustedly slapped the pictures on his desk.

"Look, you need to understand that Sheldon isn't serious—"

"So that's why you're in his office licking his stapler and rubbing your perversion on his chair?"

"I don't know what—" A video started of her in Sheldon's office. Amy's jaw dropped. The screen returned to Faisal. "Then there is your night time perversion with a sack of rice." He held up a picture of her sleeping 'companion'. Amy tried to speak but her voice cracked. "You can forget our engagement as well as your funding." He shook his head. "You are not the woman I knew."

"Faisal—"

"Sharmoot."

Faisal clicked off his channel and Amy was left with a dark screen.

Amy sat, stunned at what had just happened. But what did happen? Where did the video come from?

"Sheldon must have had a camera in his office," she muttered.

And the pictures? The bag of rice?

"Sheldon was at my place!" she snarled, her hands clenching. "But when? I was home every night except for—" Her eyes widened and then narrowed into a scowl.

Penny. At last the high school prom queen turned against her. Amy had been fooling herself all this time that they were friends. That any of them were her friends.

Amy glanced at her notebook and scowled further. All her months of experimenting on Penny and the chimpanzee were now out the window. Unacceptable.

"Point Sheldon," she muttered.

But the game wasn't over yet.