WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: A REBOOT HOMAGE

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters. Much of the dialogue in this story is adapted directly from the 2007 pilot episode script by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady. The characters of Frank and Harry are owned by son-goku5.

- 4 -

"I really think we should examine the chain of causality here," said Sheldon, halfway across Pasadena in the passenger seat of Leonard's car.

"Must we?" Leonard grumbled, trying to concentrate on the road.

"Event A," said Sheldon, ignoring Leonard's question. "A strange woman uses our shower. Event B: We drive halfway across town to retrieve a television set from the aforementioned woman's ex-boyfriend. Query: On what plane of existence is there even a semi-rational link between these events?"

The answer to that was simple—the plane on which, last night, said woman and I had what was, with complete literal accuracy, the absolute best sex of my life, and on which she more or less promised a repeat performance if I can pull this off—but sadly Sheldon was the one person on earth who would neither understand nor accept how that had shifted Leonard's priorities. "She asked me to do her a favour, Sheldon."

"Ah, yes, well that may be the proximal cause of our journey, but we both know it only exists in contradistinction to the higher-level distal cause, that being: You think with your penis."

This, unfortunately, Leonard could not deny with any kind of clear conscience. An even more ruthless part of his conscience pointed out that he would most likely have agreed to this favour even if they'd only just met Penny. "That's a biological impossibility," he said defensively. "And you didn't have to come."

"Oh, right, yes, I could have stayed behind and watched Wolowitz try to hit on Penny in Russian, Arabic and Farsi," said Sheldon, deep disgust in his voice. "Why can't she get her own TV?"

"Because she's stuck waiting for the phone and cable guys, like you always are when you move in somewhere," Leonard repeated with heavy patience. "Look, Sheldon, think of it like a NASA mission: There's a one-time only launch window here to successfully accomplish this retrieval operation. It's going to take our initiative, cleverness, and crackerjack timing to get in and out before that window closes, and if we have to scrub, it'll be a tragic and ruinous waste of our taxpaying neighbor's funds." He held up one finger theatrically and lowered his voice into his best dramatic-movie-trailer-voiceover tone. "Nobody else can pull this mission off. It's up to us."

Sheldon mulled that over. "Hmm. Well, I do enjoy viewing my life through the lens of astronautical imagery. But I continue to be puzzled why it's so vital to get this TV back before Penny's ex returns. Can't we just ask him?"

Considering I was the ultimate cause of him getting beaten up and arrested, after he saw his ex-girlfriend flirting with me—not to mention his temper, his size and his basic asshole nature—probably not. But Sheldon wouldn't accept any of that with any equanimity either. "Come on, you know how it is with break-ups," he said instead.

"No I don't," Sheldon objected, accurately enough. "And neither do you."

"Wha—?! I broke up with Joyce Kim!"

"You did not break up with Joyce Kim. She escaped to North Korea before the FBI could arrest her for espionage."

"And to leave behind her broken heart," Leonard insisted, though more for form than sincerity. With part of his mind, he realized something that really shouldn't have been as surprising as it was: The ache he always got whenever he remembered Joyce's betrayal had only faded a little in all the years since, but it had diminished amazingly since last night. He suspected he knew exactly why that was but tried not to think about it. "This situation is much less complicated. Penny just wants to avoid having a scene with her ex."

"So we get to have a scene with him?" said Sheldon.

"No, Sheldon, there's not going to be a scene!" Leonard exploded, finally losing his patience (and gladly covering his own nerves with his irritation). "He's not even going to be there, he's still going to be in the drunk tank downtown, and I've got the key. All we need to do is get in, grab the TV and an envelope of cash, and get out. Done."

"'Grab the T—'? Leonard, the two of us can't even carry a TV!"

"That's why I brought the building's cargo dolly," countered Leonard, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "Look, again, if you don't want to come, I can drop you off here and you can catch the bus back home. You're even still wearing your bus pants."

"Oh, Leonard, you know I can't do that. You're my best friend, and the roommate agreement requires us to support each other when help is requested." Sheldon folded his arms and slouched down in his seat. "Though I fully intend to bring up an amendment at the next general apartment meeting which excludes any requests resulting solely from the pursuit of coitus," he added.

For Sheldon, that was practically equivalent to I got your back, buddy; bring it on. "Noted," said Leonard, feeling absurdly warm inside.

The warmth vanished with Sheldon's next comment. "I mean, seriously, Leonard, have you considered chemical castration? Because it really seems like it might help you focus your energies more productively."

Penny's old place was an apartment building on the west side of town. Combined 360 IQ notwithstanding, Leonard and Sheldon still found themselves thwarted by the front door when they realized Penny had forgotten to give Leonard the building's entry code. Thankfully, a couple of cookie-selling Girl Scouts had overcome that obstacle for them by simply buzzing every button on the intercom at once, on the (directly verifiable, as it turned out) hypothesis that at least one person would be statistically likely to let them in without bothering to check. "What do you think their combined IQ is?" Sheldon had grumbled, as they caught the open door and slipped in behind the girls.

At the door of unit #405, Leonard paused. He had confidently reassured Sheldon that Kurt couldn't possibly be out of the drunk tank yet . . . but that was, he knew, something of an exaggeration. If somebody had bailed Kurt out, or a shift-change replacement didn't notice or care about Rick's and Dana's instructions to leave him there for the twenty-four-hour maximum, it was possible he might already be home. He gulped, squared his shoulders, then rapped firmly on the door. A minute passed with no answer. Leonard knocked again, more loudly. When there was still no answer he let out a sigh of relief and tried the key Penny had given him. The lock disengaged and the door swung back.

"We're in," he whispered to Sheldon, feeling an urge to start humming the Mission: Impossible theme.

Sheldon looked at him with a frown. "No, we're not," he said, and stepped past Leonard into the apartment's vestibule. Impatiently he beckoned. Leonard sighed and followed, pulling the dolly with him, and the moment he was over the threshold Sheldon nodded. "Okay. Now we're in." Then he turned and took in the apartment; his jaw dropped, and he went pale. "And I would very much like to be out."

For once, Leonard couldn't disagree. He wasn't as compulsive about it as Sheldon, but he had grown up in a highly controlled and organized environment, and had had the habits of tidiness and cleanliness beaten into him from a young age. The man who lived here . . . clearly had not. Unlaundered clothes had been tossed everywhere; an unfolded pile of what seemed to be slightly cleaner laundry rose up nearly four feet high on one end of the couch. A set of dirty dishes sat on the coffee table in front of the TV; more were in the kitchen sink and on the counter, which was visible through an open folding door, and half-empty glasses and mugs dotted the bookshelves, which had far fewer books in them than Leonard could have imagined ever settling for. A case of beer bottles sat by the side of the couch, more than half of them empty. Videotapes and DVDs were scattered over the couch and the floor, and stacked up out of their sleeves on the TV cabinet. The only area of the apartment which seemed like anyone had put any effort at all into maintaining it was one corner of the living room, in which a weight bench and a motorized treadmill sat side by side: the weights were rigorously organized and stored, and both bench and treadmill were clean and absolutely free of dust. A poster in front of the workout area showed a shirtless, grotesquely muscular man pointing at the viewer with a glare; it was captioned GET OFF YOUR ASS AND WORK! The entire place smelt of stale sweat and old food.

"Leonard," said Sheldon, sounding ill, "if this is the kind of living standard Penny's bringing to our building, I'm seriously thinking a call to the CDC is in order before we allow her to stay."

"We are not calling the CDC on Penny," Leonard muttered, not quite as firmly as he'd intended. "And for all we know, one reason Penny left this guy might have been because she couldn't live with the mess anymore." Which might even be true, Leonard thought . . . although it didn't bode well that it hadn't even occurred to Penny to mention the mess as a warning. If she was indeed as untidy a person as this apartment hinted, it would only give Sheldon another reason to object in principle to Penny's presence in their lives. He nodded towards the bedroom door. "Penny said the cash was in a drawer in the bedroom, in an envelope. You go in and look for that."

Sheldon's eyes bulged in horror. "You want me to go sticking my hands in other people's underwear? Even worse, these people's underwear?!"

Leonard spread his hands. "Would you rather help me unplug the TV and lift it onto the dolly?"

Sheldon blinked, his expression somewhere between betrayed and confused. "I'm in Hell," he mumbled. "We died in the car on the way over here, and I'm in Hell." He took a deep breath, covered his nose and mouth with his hand to form an impromptu surgical mask and marched into the bedroom. Leonard shook his head and went to the TV cabinet, kicking a few T-shirts out of his way.

One pleasant surprise awaited him: no doubt thanks in part to Kurt's ridiculously muscled arms, the TV and the cabinet had been positioned to leave lots of room for access to the power and connection cords, and Leonard was able to reach everything easily. Within minutes he had all the cables disconnected, rolled up and ready to move. The TV itself, unfortunately, proved a great deal heavier than he'd expected—it was an old vacuum-tube model rather than one of the newer flat screens—and Leonard decided not to try lifting the big bulky thing down onto the cargo dolly by himself. He went to the bedroom. "How you doing, Sheldon?"

"Aaahhh!" Startled by Leonard's voice, Sheldon jumped like a dissected frog hit with electrical shock; this would have been less painful for him if he hadn't been wedged almost completely inside an emptied-out bureau, trying to knock the last drawer in the cabinet free. He slithered out of the bureau, stood, and rubbed his head with a wince as he used his other hand to brush himself down. "Leonard, the health risks I'm taking here are not worth any putative benefit of any conceivable coitus, I must inform you."

Leonard gaped wordlessly at the bedroom. With his usual predilection for organization, Sheldon had chosen to expedite his search by simply sliding all the drawers out of both clothes bureaus and arranging them all on the bed. Leonard knotted his hands in his hair. "Sheldon—guh—why—nggh—why couldn't you have just looked in them, one by one?!" he finally sputtered.

"Because this makes it a lot quicker, easier, and most importantly, more sanitary," said Sheldon. "'Scuse me—" He dashed past Leonard to the kitchen and returned brandishing a spatula. "This, at least," he informed Leonard, "was clean. First thing I've seen in this place which is, probably because nobody's ever used it." He bent over the first drawer and, using the spatula, stirred his way through the clothes with a series of quick, efficient strokes. "Okay, nothing in here but socks. Next drawer—"

Leonard groaned through his teeth and went to the other side of the rows of drawers, starting from that end and sifting through them. He had to admit this did make things faster. Within a minute, in a drawer full of tattered and threadbare (and disquietingly discoloured) briefs, Sheldon's spatula unearthed a thick white unmarked envelope. With a muttered "Aha!" Leonard snatched it, flipped it open and looked through it, quickly counting the bills: yep, eighteen hundred dollars. He tucked the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. "Mission accomplished. Let's go."

"Wwwwwait," said Sheldon, lifting one hand. In disbelief, Leonard watched as Sheldon grabbed one of the drawers and began slotting it back into place. He gave Leonard a meaningful look and jerked his head at the bed. "Leonard, unless you're particularly interested in making this man think he's been robbed, it seems like a really good idea to leave as little trace of our presence as possible."

That was, unfortunately, true. Leonard bit his lip. "Good point." He grabbed up a drawer, hurried to the empty bureau, and was about to slide it in when Sheldon hissed in warning, shook his head and pointed at a different slot. Leonard only barely kept from throwing the drawer at him. "It doesn't matter if we get it right, Sheldon, we just have to get out of here as fast as we can!"

Sheldon looked alarmed. "You said we had time!"

"And we do! I . . . just . . . don't know how much. For certain." Leonard twisted and shoved the drawer he held back into a slot in the bureau. "So in this particular situation speed takes priority over accuracy, clear?"

"This kind of vagueness about mission parameters would have gotten you turfed from NASA years ago," Sheldon muttered. Abandoning organization, they shoved the drawers back into random slots and hastened out to the living room. Sheldon got on one side of the TV, Leonard on the other, and they braced themselves to lift when they heard the worst sound in the world: keys rattled in the lock of the front door. They froze.

The door swung open and two figures lurched in, wrapped around each other, kissing and groping one another with the kind of frenzy Leonard wouldn't normally have believed ever really happened outside a Hollywood soundstage —though in the wake of his night with Penny he was willing to reevaluate that assessment. He and Sheldon exchanged one terrified glance, then with simultaneous lightning-fast speed dove to the floor just below the couch, out of the figures' sightline. Leonard held his breath, frozen absolutely still, as the newcomers stumbled over the floor and then—oh God, no no no please no—thudded down on the couch itself. The muffled grunts, groans and moans of the couple rang in his ears like an oncoming train.

He glanced up. He couldn't see the newcomers' faces, but the size of the arm that moved in and out over the edge of the cushions confirmed his fear: That had to be Kurt. He'd recognize that bicep anywhere. The other person he didn't know, but from the high pitch of the moaning and exhortations, he was willing to bet it was the girl Penny had told him she'd caught Kurt with yesterday—maybe she was the one who'd bailed him out. He caught Sheldon's eye and pointed at him, then indicated a path around the far end of the couch. Sheldon nodded and began easing himself backwards as quietly as he could while staying plastered to the carpet; as he moved, he glanced down at the rug and his face contorted in a tragic mix of disgust, fear, and sorrow. Leonard couldn't half blame him. The carpet felt like nobody had vacuumed or cleaned it in months.

They managed to sneak around behind the couch just as the inevitable happened: Kurt and the girl fell off its front side, both so far gone that after the initial cries of pain the girl simply laughed in her throat and they both kept going. Concealed behind the back of the couch, Sheldon mouthed at Leonard, What do we do now? Leonard shrugged helplessly. Then Sheldon froze as a lacy black brassiere came lofting over the couch and landed right on his head. Leonard felt horribly torn between hysterical laughter and terrified sympathy at Sheldon's grimace.

He twisted to look back at the front door. If they made a sudden dash, they might get out the door before Kurt caught them . . . but—oh, shit: the cargo dolly! He'd left it in front of the TV and it was only sheer blind luck Kurt had been too preoccupied to notice it. Leonard closed his eyes, bracing himself for the startled, outraged exclamation of What the fuck is that doing there?! which surely had to happen any second now . . . .

But God chose to smile on them. "Baby—baby, wait," the girl gasped. "I don't want rugburn today. Let's take this into the bedroom." With a scramble, the couple got up and both hurried to the bedroom door, still wrapped up in each other, straight past the cargo dolly without a glance. There was a thump of bodies hitting the mattress within; then, after a moment, there came a delightedly obscene affirmative shout from the girl and the steady, rocking rhythm of creaking bedsprings. Sheldon looked almost as revolted at the sounds as he had at the bra and the carpet.

"Now can we get out of here?" he hissed at Leonard, swiping the bra off his head.

The noise coming from the bedroom, however, had reminded Leonard of some memories of his own. Suddenly the terror of a moment ago seemed much less relevant. "Wait—let's get the TV first!"

"Have you absolutely lost your mind?" It sounded like it wanted to be a shriek, if Sheldon hadn't kept his voice to a terrified whisper. "Move it yourself, I'm not staying!" He started for the door.

Leonard grabbed Sheldon's arm to stop him. Inwardly he writhed in guilt, but the rest of him was too determined: he had promised Penny he would do this, and he really, really wanted the second chance he hoped this would get him. "Sheldon," he hissed, "if you don't help me I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs and get us both beaten up. And arrested, probably."

Sheldon stopped dead still, looking betrayed. "You wouldn't."

Leonard only met his gaze steadily. The air crackled, the only sounds the ever-rising, ever-louder moans, shouts and obscene encouragements from the bedroom. The creaking of the bedsprings grew faster and faster. Then, deliberately, Leonard drew in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

Sheldon's nerve broke. "All right!" he hissed, throwing up his hands. "Come on, hurry, hurry!" He dashed to one side of the TV, Leonard to the other. Together, they heaved, got the television off the shelf, and lowered it gingerly onto the dolly, both of them red-faced and straining in the effort to set it down silently. Finally it touched down, and Sheldon relaxed . . . with a loud gasp.

He looked horrified and covered his mouth; Leonard cringed. But the gasp had coincided with a yell of triumph from the bedroom, and gone unheard. Both slumped in relief.

The creaking bedsprings kept going. The girl's voice took on a note of surprise and delight. "Oh, god, baby, you aren't done yet?" Trying to ignore the heated flush in his own face, Leonard turned the dolly and began hauling it and the TV out of the apartment, navigating it towards the door. As he pushed the dolly from the other end, Sheldon glared over his shoulder at the sounds continuing to emanate from the bedroom. "Oh god, yeah, baby, baby, just like that!" the girl caroled. "Oh, shit, you're gonna get me again—oh, baby, you do me so good—"

And that, of all things, was what finally made Sheldon snap. "Good God, people, learn some grammar! It's 'You do me so well!'" he burst out. Then he clapped both hands to his mouth, eyes wide.

The girl screamed in fright and shock; Kurt yelled in wordless fury; a second later the sound of a scrambling struggle cut off in a yelp and a tremendous double thud as two bodies hit the floor—evidently Kurt had tried to jump free and failed to disentangle himself in time. Abandoning stealth, Leonard hauled on the dolly as hard as he could, thundering towards the door. Kurt burst out of the bedroom, stark naked, charging at them with murder clearly evident in his blazing, maddened eyes.

Sheldon lunged for the couch and swept the huge pile of laundry into the air, hurling it at Kurt in a storm of flying towels, shirts, jeans, socks and underwear. Kurt's yell was muffled by a towel flapping into his face; he stumbled, trying to rip it away while still running, and his legs tangled in a pair of jeans. With a roar of rage, he fell. His head met the floor face-first with a sickening whomp and his roar cut off into a deep, agonized groan, his limbs flailing weakly. Leonard stared, mouth open in amazement. Sheldon whirled, yelled, "Run!" and bolted straight past Leonard out the door.

Annoying as his roommate often was, Leonard had to admit that when Sheldon was right, he was right, and should be listened to. He ran, hauling the TV-laden dolly behind him, and caught up to Sheldon at the elevator. The door whirred open; the two of them wheeled the dolly in and hit the CLOSE button. The sound of their panting and gasping filled the elevator's silence, gradually slowing as the elevator descended.

"How fast do you think he'll recover?" Leonard eventually asked.

Sheldon frowned, his breathing still rapid. "Given his estimated mass, the speed and force of his fall, the padding of the towel, the elasticity of the carpet and the average male recovery time from concussive skull impact, my final estimate would be . . . that you're a goldarned lunatic, Leonard." He glared at Leonard. "And I trust you are aware that I don't use 'goldarned' lightly."

"I know. I know. Believe me, Sheldon, I am fully aware of how much I owe you for this."

"Oh, no, Leonard, I don't believe you are," said Sheldon loftily, folding his arms. "And there will be a discussion about this at the next apartment meeting." Leonard winced internally, but couldn't feel as bad about that as he normally would have.

With a ding, the elevator arrived at ground level, and the two of them shoved the dolly out of the car and headed for the front door at top speed. By the time they'd gotten out the door, through the parking lot and up to Leonard's car, both were red and sweaty again, and wrestling the TV into the trunk took the last of their strength. Sheldon gave Leonard another glare as they got into the car and Leonard started the engine. "If you were so determined to help this woman out in the name of building up goodwill for future potential coitus," he demanded between gasps, "why in the name of Great Zarquon's Ghost didn't you just offer to buy her a new TV? Preferably a flatscreen model that would have been much easier to carry and much safer to obtain?"

Leonard shrugged feebly as he navigated to the parking lot's exit. "Because . . . that would have made me look like a wimp. And like I was trying to buy her affections."

"And running in terror from that steroid-infused monstrosity of an ex-boyfriend doesn't?"

"Not if Penny doesn't have to see it," said Leonard. He pulled out onto the street and headed for home.

Sheldon shook his head in incredulity. "Leonard, I think you may need to get your IQ re-tested. The lengths you're going to for the mere long-term possibility of physical intimacy are practically Wolowitz-like in their irrationality, especially given the objective likelihood of your ultimate failure." He settled himself in the seat and folded his arms. "Is sexual intercourse really worth all this time and effort, Leonard?"

Leonard's mouth twitched. "Why don't you try it sometime and see for yourself?"

"As a devotee of the Vulcan discipline of Kolinahr, I will respond to that with the only answer it merits: Ew."