I won't bore you with the chaos that has been my life for the last year, but I am in need of a distraction and since I watched a few new episodes (yikes) I decided I NEEDED to return to my fic. So thanks for those of you who have been patient. Enjoy!

I do not own BBT. I only dabble.

The weekend was a blur of exploration and experimentation. Penny battled with her conscious to no avail. The voice of reason got quieter and quieter as the enjoyed each other's company. It was hard to say no to something that felt so good – and she wasn't just thinking of what transpired in the bedroom (and kitchen, and bathroom... and living room).

Saturday night they had dinner and saw a scary movie. Sheldon was quick to point out the inaccuracies and fallacies, but he also jumped just as high as Penny when the scene changed for the worse. Sunday was a lazy day with Sheldon showing Penny a new online game called ESO. While she wasn't eager to get addicted again, it was pretty fun. Both nights were spent together and any guilt or unease was ignored.

By Tuesday, Penny was back at school having spent last night back in her apartment on her own. As she left the classroom she turned her phone back on as she made her way through the crowds to her car. She noticed pop ups for a few emails and text messages. The first was from Amy asking Penny to call her. There was no use putting it off any longer. Even though she was still in romantic limbo, after all that had happened – she had to say something.

As she prepared to dial, however she noticed another text from Sheldon. A smile stole it's way onto her lips as she read.

S:Buying plane tickets for Friday night. Since I can't convince you to take the train.
S:But we're avoiding LAX.

Thankful she wouldn't have to endure hours on a train she quickly typed back.

P: Sounds good, Moonpie.

She couldn't resist a little teasing. After hitting send she quickly typed another message.

P: See you tonight?

While she told herself she'd sent it casually, she felt that familiar wave of anxiety that had become such a part of her life lately it felt like a tide. It came and went, but was an everyday occurance. All the time spent together in the last few weeks had only dulled the sensation. At any moment Sheldon could still snap back into his old self, but until then she was just riding the waves.

She turned her thoughts to the other matter at hand and dialed Amy.

The phone rang, eventually connecting with an out of breath sounding Amy.

"Bestie! I need you!"

"Uh, hi Amy," Penny said caught off guard. "What's up?"

"IhaveaconferencetogotoandIhavenothingtowear!"

Penny couldn't decipher all that Amy said but she caught the 'nothing to wear' portion right away. She was all to familiar with the scenario, but she'd never pictured Amy in such a predicament.

"I'm free today, I guess," Penny offered.

"Yes! That's great! Can you meet me at the mall in an hour?"

"Sure, sure. See you there."

They hung up Penny feeling as frazzled as her friend sounded. As she navigated the chaos of the college parking lot she wondered to herself what could have possibly gotten into Amy.

Sheldon sat in his office after lecture grading papers. He could hire a student grader, but summer classes were so small that it wasn't worth the effort of searching for a candidate and subjecting them to his application process.

A knock on the office door caused him to look up for the cause. A moment later Dr. Gablehouser stepped in. Sheldon set down his pens folding his hands. He hadn't spoken to the man since the department declined his discipline switch.

"Hello, Dr. Gablehouser," he said not bothering to mask his displeasure. "To what do I owe the unannounced disruption?"

If the man was perturbed at all, he hid it well, a small smile remaining on his lips. He made no attempt to sit, but stood between the two desk chairs.

"Hello Dr. Cooper, some last minute grading?" He didn't wait for a response before continuing "I saw you had submitted a time-off request for the holiday weekend."

Sheldon raised a brow, "I thought only H.R. and immediate supervisors saw time-off requests?"

"Oh, yes, usually. However, Lydia from H.R. thought it was a prank or mistake and called me immediately. I looked it over and thought I'd drop by to make sure that it was authentic."

"It is. I'm visiting family."

"In that case, my next stop will be the Geology department to assure that the core of the earth is still molten and that hell hasn't frozen over."

The man smiled at his own joke. Sheldon bit back a retort.

"Anyhow," the older man continued stepping a little nearer. "I wanted to discuss your recent request for a discipline change."

Sheldon perked up at this, "Oh?"

"While much of the research at the university is limited due to funding and we must be strict with our appointments, maybe we can help each other out."

"I don't much care for compromise, but what did you have in mind?" Sheldon refused to do anything menial just to appease the department and would rather explore his own options.

"As you know Dr. Hofstadter left our campus to pursue other projects. This left a two of his Fall graduate courses without a proper advisor. Now, I know you usually only take on postgraduates for research, but I'm wondering if you would make an exception. If you do, we could find quite a bit of funding for you and a few students to make it worthwhile. The only drawback is that the research field is very narrow. You would be working with JPL on their grant terms."

Having done past work with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Sheldon knew all research was closely supervised. However, he also thought about the students. His former roommate left a great deal behind and it seemed to all be lining up to fall into Sheldon's lap. There was no real argument against taking up the work and if it went as well as the other instances where he was stepping out of his comfort zone, this could only be good news.

"What an interesting universe I've fallen into," he remarked, mostly to himself.

"Excuse me?" Asked Gablehouser, confused.

"Nothing. If you wouldn't mind sending me a past syllabus and learning outcomes for the graduate courses, I can draft new ones."

"The old syllabi should –"

Sheldon gave the man a concerned look.

"Nevermind," he relented, holding up both hands. "I'll have the dean send everything to you before the week is up." He moved to the door turning back for only a moment. "Oh, and Sheldon?"

"Yes," he asked already creating a new folder on his computer for the course he'd be reconfiguring.

"Tell your mother I said hello."

Penny stood in the entrance to the mall biting her nails. She needed a manicure rather badly and was worried there would be nothing left by the time she got one.

I'm broke anyway, she thought annoyed.

She had numerous scenarios of her conversation with Amy playing in her head. What would Amy say? Would she be angry? Sad? Murderous? Or would she be so distracted by whatever this event was that she wouldn't care. In any case, Penny's gut was in knots and she was on the verge of cancelling altogether.

As she imagined faking an emergency, she caught sight of the brunette hurrying towards her. Before she could prepare, she was enveloped in a hug.

"Thank you so much for coming!" Amy exclaimed as she crushed Penny briefly then let her go. "I need your fashion expertise like you wouldn't believe!"

Before Penny could do anything but make an odd sound that would have been words, she was being dragged by the arm into the mall.

"Where should we start," asked Amy once they were inside and looking between nearby stores.

"Uh, I don't know, what about here it's the first one."

They made their way into Macy's and navigated to the section with pants suits and blouses. Amy began sliding items around on their racks looking excited.

"I don't know where to start," Amy said holding up a blouse with polka dots.

"Well, I usually try to force myself into the junior sizes, so I don't know much about business attire."

After Amy picked up a sweater vest that had small knitted cats on it she quickly forgot about the conversation she was there to have. Penny may be in dire straits, but she had a duty to this poor woman.

Taking the appalling item and putting it back, "Wait, okay Amy, if you want my help you are not allowed to buy anything that my grandmother would wear to canasta."

Penny moved over a few racks and picked out a few staple items.

"Here, let's do this." Penny said handing over the stack to a grinning Amy.

After visiting several stores, Amy had ended up with plain button ups in several colors, a sporty blazer, some pencil skirts and modest heels. Penny had even convinced her to visit Victoria Secret and buy bras and panties in colors other than white and nude.

They were now sitting in the food court finishing up lunch.

"So Amy, you never told me why you needed to go shopping for this conference. What's so important about it?"

Amy seemed to take a little longer to chew than necessary. "It's a biotech conference."

"Oh, that's cool. Are you presenting or something?"

"Not quite." Amy said wrapping up her trash carefully. Penny definitely sensed something was off.

"Is everything okay, Amy?"

Amy took a deep breath. "Well, I guess I should just tell you. I enlisted your help because I wanted something that says 'I am a distinguished professional that is romantically available'."

Penny glanced at Amy's face at that. "What?" A scenario ran through Penny's head where Amy showed up in her new outfit at Sheldon's office trying to win him back. She shut it out and folded her hands in her lap.

A heavy sigh escaped Amy as her eyes finally met Penny's. "I'm going to a conference with Kumal."

The name rang a bell, but Penny couldn't shake the image of Amy embracing Sheldon enough to think. "Who?"

"Kumal? My coworker… remember Kumal from Nepal?"

All the wires finally connected and Penny smiled widely. "Oh! Kumal! How exciting!"

Amy smiled back and shook her head. "You looked upset, I was worried you would disapprove of my dating him."

Penny shook her head, "No this is great," she laughed. "I was worried you wanted to get back with Sheldon."

Amy started to laugh but faltered. "Wait, but… why would that be a problem?"

Penny's mouth dried up so fast she could swear that someone has sucked all the moisture from the room. She reached for her cup to find that she'd already finished her drink. She tried to look anywhere but at Amy, but she knew she was being a coward.

"Penny." Amy's tone hit Penny in the chest. There was already a note of accusation there. "What aren't you telling me?"

Penny met Amy's gaze finally and couldn't keep the apologetic and guilty look from her face.

"Amy, I didn't mean for it to happen –"

Amy's mouth slowly dropped open in understanding. Penny reached across the table to take Amy's hand, but it was snatched away. It was like a punch in the gut, though, now Penny would rather have that than this new feeling. It wasn't the first time she'd slept with someone's ex, but it was the first time she'd hurt someone she cared so much for.

When Amy finally met Penny's eyes there were tears there.

"How could you?"

"Amy, I'm so sorry, you and Leonard had left and –"

"So how long did you wait? Did you at least wait for me to leave the building before stealing my boyfriend?"

The accusation felt so much worse coming from Amy. Penny leaned away as though she'd been slapped.

"No!" she retorted, her voice shaking. "You broke up with him, he wasn't your boyfriend – I would never do that!"

A wave of nausea hit her as her mind whispered ugly accusations.

But you kissed him on the roof… they weren't broken up then.

She pushed the thoughts away, but the feelings remained. Amy was gathering up her bags and purse.

"I guess you couldn't help it, I can't blame you. It's in your nature," Amy said these last words harshly, tears spilling past her glasses. She turned away and rushed off.

"Amy, please!" Penny tried to gather her own purse and follow, feeling her own tears welling up. "Wait!"

The brunette had already made it around the corner and Penny could only gather her purse up weakly and make her way to her car, wrapping her arms around herself and hiding her face from passersby.

Penny had come home and locked her apartment door, lying in her room watching the shadows get deeper. She had swayed between sorrow and fatigue, falling asleep at some point, ignoring the buzzing of her phone.

She was awoken by tell-tale knocking and she checked the time. It read 7:30 pm. Lifting herself off the bed she moved to the bedroom door and to the front door.

Her hand hovered for a moment but she drew it back again. She knew she had no right to seek comfort from this man. She had stolen him, she knew that now. In their endless bickering and teasing, it was so easy to cross the line into romance. She pursued him, sought him out. It was no accident. How long had she tried to deny this?

"Penny?" Sheldon's muffled voice carried through the door.

She tried to ignore the pull of his voice, but failed. She unlocked the door and opened it to find Sheldon standing there looking relieved and worried.

"Oh thank the Lord, I was about to – Penny what's wrong."

Penny moved her mouth but words weren't forthcoming. Instead she motioned inside and let Sheldon through before closing the door.

I'm already on the next chapter, thanks for reading!