fic: if not now, then when
If Not Now, Then When | sheldon/penny, pg (for swearing), ~4890, beta'd by pandoraandbox |
For marikatz. Prompt: Penny has a secret crush on Sheldon and plans to tell him on Christmas... but what she doesn't know is that he secretly likes her too... Lots of angst.
When she breaks for the summer, it’s always a relief. Not that she doesn’t love her work, because acting is her life but the early mornings and the fifteen hour days are never easy. And sometimes yeah, she feels like she hasn’t slept in years, but at the end of the day it’s always worth it. Nine months away from family and friends, filming the latest season of Mars, but now she finally gets to go home. She can say goodbye to Vancouver’s rain and biting cold. It’s back to the sunshine and beaches of lovely Pasadena for Penny. And then there’s the other side of it: Halo night, tangerine chicken and splitting dumplings, laundry every Saturday night and at the centre of it all, her boys.
When she finally gets off the plane and into the terminal, her eyes find his face instantly and easily amidst the crowd. Sheldon looks much the same as he always has and it makes her heart clench with a thousand emotions all at once just to see him standing there, tall and awkward and still wearing those horrible, tight comic book T-shirts, some of which are so worn they wouldn’t even make good rags.
The sign he’s holding up says ‘QUEEN PENELOPE’ in large block letters, and it makes her grin so hard her cheeks hurt. Last year, when they had used her actual name, they hadn’t gotten out of the airport for an hour. Sheldon had called it “a previously unknown circle of hell” and had vowed to avoid it at all costs the next time.
When she reaches him she gives him a sloppy hug because she’s tired enough not to care that he still stiffens when she does that. She doesn’t even mind the strange look he gives her when she pulls back like he always does when she does something weird like touch him. Penny just gives him her most blinding smile in response.
“To the Batmobile, Mr. Spock!” she announces, just to make him give her the Look, which he does without fail.
For all her excitement at seeing Sheldon and at being home, she’s still dead on her feet from the flight. It only takes the time for Sheldon to back out of the parking lot for Penny to fall asleep in the passenger seat, head pressed against the car window and sunglasses slipping down her nose. She’s amazed that she only wakes up once they’ve reached the building; Sheldon can drive, but it’s never what one would call a smooth ride. He wakes her in his usual manner, gently shaking her shoulder and saying her name three times over.
“You should continue your sleep inside. The current angle of your neck will only strain your muscles, particularly the sternocleidomastoid. Come on,” he says softly and Penny obliges with sleepy compliance.
She’s still half-asleep as they make their way up to the apartment. Penny stumbles going up the stairs and is only stopped from face planting by a steadying hand on her elbow. After the second time she trips, Sheldon leaves his hand there, a point of warmth that she leans into until their shoulders bump. Later she can claim exhaustion, which isn’t entirely untrue, but for now she allows herself this. Sheldon doesn’t comment nor does he let go until they reach the apartment and he has to search for his keys.
When she finally gets to the bedroom, she falls into it with a happy sigh. The last thing Penny hears before she slips off into blissful sleep is Sheldon saying in an exasperated tone, “Is it really too much to ask for you to take off your shoes?”
---
There was a conversation she had had with one of her co-stars at the wrap party this year that had been repeating over and over in her mind during the plane ride back to Pasadena.
She had been pretty drunk at the time. Anna had sidled up to her, blue cocktail in hand and a teasing expression on her face. “Can you explain to me why I’ve been hearing that you turned down Aaron last night?” she asked, and Penny had almost spilt her drink in her surprise.
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone.” Anna gave Penny her most pointed look. It was pretty effective, Penny had to admit, when she could do nothing but sip guiltily at her drink in response.
“We’re better off being friends.”
“Bullshit. That is the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard! You turned down a perfectly good-looking, rich, funny guy because of that?” She rolled her eyes. “There must be something else. So spill. Boyfriend? Recent break up? Unrequited love?” Something must have shown on her face because Anna had taken one look at her and then burst into laughter.
“Oh my God!” Against her will, Penny flushed.
“He’s just an old friend. And he has no interest in relationships at all, trust me,” she assured her. Anna had just given her an incredulous look.
“Have you seen yourself, girl? You’re totally hot! Of course he wants you.”
“Hot isn’t his type. He’s a physicist.” Penny had said, in the last line mimicking Sheldon’s smug inflection flawlessly.
“Hot is every man’s type. And even scientists have feelings.” Anna looked confident in her assessment and Penny hadn’t really known how to explain to her the mystery that was Sheldon Cooper’s deal. It was still baffling to her on occasion.
“I think this guy would say otherwise.”
“Well, you’ve at least gone for it, right?” At Penny’s embarrassed silence, Anna’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Oh. My. God. You have told him, right?”
“It’s not as simple as that!” At least, it never seemed like that to Penny. Stewing with her feelings wasn’t usually her way of dealing. Normally she would have done something about it by now had the cause of those feelings being anyone else but Sheldon. He still became strange whenever anyone touched him, especially her, and the only thing Sheldon hated more than change was the first Start Trek movie. Penny had surmised all signs pointed to a lost cause.
“No excuses! ‘Cause frankly your reasons suck.” Anna paused a moment to drain the rest of her blue cocktail before fixing her eyes back on Penny. “Alright, this is how it’s going to go. You’re going to go back home and tell this guy how you feel. Then you’re going to have mind-blowing sex for a week. Then you’re going to call me and thank me for being such a fucking awesome friend. Deal?” Penny had laughed despite herself.
“I’m not getting out of this, am I?” she asked, ruefully. Anna had just grinned at her sweetly.
“No. Way. In. Hell.”
---
When she wakes up, she’s under the blanket in Leonard’s room which is technically her room now she supposes. He had moved out last year to live with his girlfriend Mei. Her shoes are off and by the door, and her jacket is folded neatly on the chair by her bed. It’s soft and warm under the covers, and she’s very tempted to stay where she is and sleep another few hours. She’s about to close her eyes again when she gets a tantalising whiff of Chinese food that’s proving hard to resist. The last thing she ate was a buttered dinner roll and some reheated chicken on the flight home which, unsurprisingly, had been very unsatisfying.
When she stumbles into the living room, the whole gang’s there, and for a moment she just stands there and drinks in the sight of them. There’s Howard and Bernadette sharing the one-seater with ease and Raj sitting cross-legged in the space beside the couch. Leonard is occupying one end of the sofa, and Mei sits in a chair pulled up next to him. And finally, as always, there is Sheldon in his spot, the image one of the constants in her world. Warmth spreads from Penny’s chest down to the tips of her toes. This is home for Penny as much as the farm in Omaha.
“Hey, guys,” she says, slipping into her usual seat on the couch between Sheldon and Leonard, a puzzle piece slotting into place. Howard turns in his seat to regard her with a leer.
“Oh Penny, you look more delicious and ravishing every time I see you. In a completely platonic way, of course.” he reassures her, completely unconvincingly.
“Thanks, Howard. I see living with Bernadette hasn’t done a thing for your creepiness. You should really get that checked out.” She exchanges a smile with Raj, who mouths ‘oh, snap’ while Howard gives her an indignant look.
“Penny, I don’t think I’ve thanked you for giving us the lease to your apartment. Howard and I really appreciate it,” Bernadette says, “Also, I checked out that new shoe gallery you told me about, and it was amazing.” Sheldon heaves a sigh and gives Penny a pointed look.
“No problem. Just glad to help.” Penny says, ignoring his dramatics and turning to Leonard instead. “Leonard, can you pass the dumplings?”
“Sure.”
“Hang on, let me grab one before you pass them on.” says Mei. She spears a dumpling on her chopsticks and Sheldon tsks. He turns to her with a disappointed expression.
“As a woman of Chinese descent, I thought you of all people would know that piercing food with your chopsticks is a social faux pas.”
Mei sighs. “Yes, Sheldon, I am disgracing my people, I can see the looks of horror on everyone’s face right now.”
“I sense you’re not taking this seriously, Mei. I can only assume that the implications of the gesture are not clear to you. Let me explain,”
Everyone groans as Sheldon launches into one of his classic laboured explanations. Penny smiles into her chow mein and is happy to be home.
---
It’s been their little tradition since Penny first moved away. It’s the first Friday night since her arrival in Pasadena. Wordlessly, they move in tandem once everyone’s gone. The food containers are cleaned away, the power cords are plugged in, the headsets are on, and they’re ready to go.
“Sheldor the Conqueror and Queen Penelope are online. Hello, minions.”
“Sheldon, didn’t we agree to not call our guild members that anymore? At least not where they can hear?”
“My mistake. Hello, fellow guildies, of slightly inferior standing to Queen Penelope and myself.”
“That’s…almost better.” Penny concedes. It’s really no wonder they have such a high turnover rate for guild members. Not that she actually minds. As long as Sheldor and Penelope are together, there is nothing she has to fear; no human or monster is a match for the team they make.
They’re sitting side by side on the couch, yelling at some Russian fifteen years olds to start hitting the damn dragon already when Penny’s phone goes off. When they finally kill it she checks her phone while Sheldon loots the corpse.
remebr ur promise ;)
When Penny looks back to the couch, she sees Sheldon focused and intent on his laptop and she takes a moment to look at him. His brow is furrowed in concentration and his lips are bitten red, a habit she has noticed every time they enter a particularly harrowing battle. Just below the angle of his jaw is a triangle of freckles, and she can’t look away from them. She wonders what it would be like if she put her mouth there.
“Sheldon?”
“Yes, Penny?” He doesn’t look away from the monitor, his face illuminated by the screen.
I am so fucking in love with you, she thinks.
“Wanna run the Black Castle?” she asks. Sheldon doesn’t seem to notice her too long pause or her frustrated expression when he glances at her.
“Provided we can recruit a competent healer, I am open to the incursion.” he replies. He turns back to his laptop and busies himself with finding someone to join their run. Penny bites her lip and wonders where all her courage has gone.
---
Sheldon is an expert at ignoring signs. There have been people in the past, women and even men on occasion, who have tried for Sheldon, but he had always ignored the interest, never seeing it as having anything to do with him. Herself included. It doesn’t matter what she wears when she is around him, be it her slobbiest clothing, her skimpiest dress or even just her underwear; the way he looks at her never changes. In some ways she likes it, but in others it’s just a cause for endless frustration. Just sometimes Penny wishes that Sheldon would look at her and not see his roommate or his-friend-Penny, but a woman.
---
Penny has taken to invading Sheldon’s laundry nights regularly, partly to keep him company but mostly out of boredom. Tonight she parks herself on the machine next to his, kicking her legs back and forth, and he tells her off, because those lids aren’t made to withstand the weight of the average human body, even if it’s as slight a physique as yours, Penny. She, of course, ignores him. They spend the time talking of everything and nothing. She tells him about the latest script she’s been reading (“I’d get to play a zombie pirate, which could be, you know, interesting”), some of the pranks she’s pulled on her co-stars on set (“Here’s a photo; he hasn’t let me alone in his trailer since”). He tells her about Kripke’s impending transfer to a university interstate (“I feel a joy akin to the first time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy”) and the conspiracy he suspects the cleaners have against him (“The soap dispensers haven’t been refilled in two weeks, and they have yet to dust my office to an acceptable standard”). It’s easy between them, like it always is. By the time they start folding the clothing, Penny is certain she has laughed more in the last hour than she has in months. It doesn’t help that his face is series of twitches as he watches her folding his clothes. She gets through two pairs of socks and a T-shirt before finally he snaps.
“Stop attempting to help me, Penny. You’re only causing an eyesore with your haphazard folding.”
“They look fine!” she protests. To her credit the shirt she’s folded is only a little lopsided.
“They are not fine; they are a travesty. The size of the shirt you’ve just folded is much too big and won’t fit within the allotted space in my drawer. No, at that size it will be encroaching on the area designated for pants. And the socks,” He holds up a pair of balled up socks to her face. “Well, the less said about them the better.”
Penny rolls her eyes and throws another pair of folded socks onto the pile. He glares at her and she makes a face at him in response. Penny catches the twitch of his lips as he turns back to his laundry despite his attempts to hide it and she doesn’t bother to hide her triumphant smile. For a while they stand in companionable silence, only the clack of Sheldon’s folding contraption breaking the quiet. Penny feels content to just be here, the smell of clean clothes and the soothing rhythm of his movements a comfort she hadn’t realised she missed. She hadn’t had to do her own laundry in Vancouver, not with one of her PAs It makes her think of her empty hotel room in Vancouver and the nights she spent missing him, and suddenly Penny remembers with clarity the deal she made with Anna. Just thinking about it makes her stomach flip. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself.
“Sheldon, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Yes, Penny?” he says.
Penny swallows, mouth abruptly gone desert dry. “Sheldon, I-”
“Hello, Sheldon, Penny. I thought I heard your voices.” Bernadette sweeps into the laundry, a basket full of clothes under one arm and a magazine in the other. Penny feels like beating her head on the wall.
“Hello, Bernadette,” says Sheldon. He points out the washers by the wall to her. “I suggest you use the machine three for your delicates and colours in machine one.”
“Thanks, Sheldon.” Bernadette, to Penny’s surprise, actually follows his instructions. “Oh, Penny, Howard found an old photo album of yours behind the bookshelf today.”
“Oh yeah?” she replies, distracted. It takes a moment for Penny to actually register what she says. “Wait a minute. Is that the one filled with pictures from when I was in high school?”
“That’s it. Your cheerleading uniform was really cute, Penny. Howard thought so, too.” Bernadette tells her and Penny’s skin crawls at the thought.
“Right. Okay, I’m just going to go get that back right now.” she says because, ew. Penny turns to go, but before she can leave, Sheldon calls out to her.
“Wait a moment, Penny,” When she turns around, he is regarding her with a curious look. “What is it that you were going to say earlier?”
Penny flicks her eyes to where Bernadette is standing, and she swallows back the words that had been on the tip of her tongue only moments before. Her chance is gone. “Nothing,” she says instead. “Nothing at all.”
---
Christmas creeps up on her somehow. Penny could go to L.A., live up the holiday celebrity-style (which a few years ago, would have been her choice hands down), no questions asked. Instead she’d rather stay here this year and pine for her dorky, particular, eccentric roommate. If she didn’t already know it, that would have been the big indicator, the equivalent of a giant neon sign flashing on her forehead the words ‘IN TOO DEEP’.
Penny wishes sometimes that she could just get over it. Save herself the trouble. It still doesn’t change the fact that she believes that Sheldon Cooper is the best thing that ever happened to her. He has always seen her as she is, never just a pretty face, and he has never expected her to be something she’s not. He’s the one person in her life to really challenge her and to push her to challenge herself. After all, it was Sheldon who encouraged her to audition for her the title role on Mars in the first place, albeit in his own Sheldon-esque way. To lose him because she wanted something he wasn’t willing to give...well. She doesn’t want to imagine it; she can’t even bring herself to. Sheldon Cooper is not someone she can just get over.
---
“There’s nothing like the smell of paint on a Saturday morning, is there?”
“You said it.”
Penny peeks around the corner of their little bunker only to pull back a moment later to avoid the barrage of shots fired at her.
“Leonard, your girlfriend is trying to kill us again,” she tells him solemnly.
“Yeah, I really need to talk to her about that sometime. It was fine at first, but now it’s just weird,” he says wryly, and Penny laughs. Mei and Penny aren’t allowed on the same team anymore, not after the first time they played together. While Mei doesn’t have the deadly accuracy of Penny, she more than makes up for it with her sheer aggression, which had made them, to quote Howard, “like the ride of the Valkyries, only without the sort of riding I usually prefer”. Hence their current situation.
“Well, I guess we’d better sit tight until reinforcements arrive. Where the hell is Sheldon anyway?”
“My guess? He’s probably hiding out behind some tree, waiting for us to come save him.”
Penny sits herself down in the dirt and grins. “That’s our self-appointed, fearless leader for you,” she says fondly. Penny can picture it clearly, Sheldon crouching behind a tree, attempting and failing to pull all his long limbs out of view and the thought makes her smile. When she turns to look at him, Leonard is watching her with an unreadable look on his face.
“What?” she asks.
“I’ve meaning to talk to you about that, actually. You and Sheldon,” he says with a forced casualness.
“Oh?” Penny says, her voice light.
“Just. It doesn’t have to be this way forever, you know?” Leonard isn’t looking at her anymore but rather at the figure he’s drawing into the dirt. Penny could act as if she doesn’t know what he means. Knowing Leonard, he’d probably drop it if she did pretend. But there’s also a big part of her that wants to have it all come out into the open and not have to hide it anymore.
“Leonard,” Penny sighs and gives in. “This thing with me and Sheldon? I don’t see it ever changing. I don’t think Sheldon is ever going to want it to change,” she says, and try as she might, she can’t keep the bitterness from her voice.
Leonard gives her a look of pure disbelief. “You’re joking. You do realise that the only reason Sheldon keeps that apartment is because of you, right?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, completely puzzled.
“I mean, it’s not like he needs all that space now that he’s living there by himself most of the year. And when we suggested he find another roommate, he wouldn’t even consider it,” Leonard says.
“Well, you know Sheldon. He’s not exactly what you’d call a people person.”
“That’s not it and you know it,” Leonard retorts, “You’re always travelling these days and, well…I think he just wants you to always have somewhere to come home to.” It’s like a veil being drawn from over her eyes and suddenly she understands exactly what Leonard is saying.
“A 0,0,0,0 thingy.” she murmurs. He gives her a small smile and nods.
“He’s changed a lot because of you, Penny.” Leonard gives a small laugh. “He lets you change the settings on the television, for God’s sake!” He pauses a moment before looking up from the dirt to regard Penny with serious eyes. “I’m just trying to say that maybe it’s not Sheldon who’s afraid of change?” Truth be told, it had never occurred to her before and the new knowledge stuns her into silence.
“Penny?” he asks when she’s been quiet too long.
“I guess we can’t just sit here and wait forever, can we?” she says, slowly. She looks at Leonard and gives him a smile which he returns easily.
“Nope.” he replies simply.
“Right then.” In one smooth movement Penny clicks the safety off her rifle and hefts it up to rest in the crook of her arm. She gives Leonard a wolfish grin. “Let’s show ‘em what we’re made of.”
---
See, the thing is that Penny has had the jocks, the stars of the football team, the jerks, the nice guys and even the nerdy nice guy. None of those relationships ever ended in anything less than a crash and a burn. She’s gotten pretty tired of pulling her heart from underneath the wreckage, waiting for the scars to heal only to do it all over again. She’s twenty-nine now, and it’s been a while since she’s let herself fall in love with anyone. She’s learned to hide her heart from view; once burned, twice shy and all that. Penny guesses she has just forgotten that sometimes the risk is worth it.
Sometimes love is worth it.
---
The Christmas party is in full swing. At this point in time, Penny has kissed four guys (Raj being one of them) and two girls. It’s the damn mistletoe Howard has insisted on, and it seems to be strung up everywhere. Penny thinks they’ve learnt their lesson about leaving the decorating to Howard and Bernadette. Or maybe not, amends Penny wryly as she spots two of her girlfriends making out under the mistletoe in the kitchen. The display has drawn the avid attention of pretty much every heterosexual male in the room.
Except for one. She catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye sneaking into the hallway, probably satisfied with his contribution to tonight’s social gathering. Penny’s heart leaps in her chest, beating hard and fast. She’s seen enough Hallmark movies to know that this is her chance. Penny takes one more long swallow of liquid courage and puts it down with purpose. It does nothing to settle the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, but she follows him anyway. It’s now or never.
When she opens the door to their apartment, Sheldon is there, his back to her as he does his preying mantis routine over his desk, a posture both familiar and endearing. He starts when Penny closes the door behind her and quickly turns to face her with a long-suffering expression.
“Oh, Penny. Haven’t I endured this pagan celebration of Saturnalia long enough?”
“It’s okay, Sheldon. I haven’t come here to drag you back to the party. I know how much you hate having fun,” she teases.
“I don’t see how lowering one’s inhibitions so one may partake in inebriated social interaction can be viewed as ‘fun’,” he mutters, but she ignores him.
“I just came here to tell you something important,” Penny says.
“Alright,” he allows. “Speak your piece.” Sheldon turns to face her fully, the look on his face expectant. Penny feels like the world has contracted into this small room, this careful moment. Time slows. She can’t say a word. Not a single thing. Her whole little speech and everything she planned to say has vanished from her head. She knows with utter certainty that there are no words big enough to describe the overflowing feeling in her chest right now, the one that she can’t keep inside, not anymore. So she does the only thing she can think of. Penny kisses him.
It’s not a perfect kiss. Sheldon goes shock still the moment their lips meet, and Penny has to raise herself to her tiptoes to reach him. But even so, she finds herself growing warm at his touch. It shocks her when his hands first touch her hips, gentle as butterflies, testing the boundaries of what is and isn’t allowed, seeking not to push away but to hold. Carefully, she brings one hand to rest on the nape of his neck and strokes the line of his jaw with her thumb, gently reassuring. Moment by moment, he relaxes into her. Seeing it as permission, Penny presses in closer and to her surprise, Sheldon presses back. This is the moment that the storybooks and the fairytales have always talked about, of that Penny is completely certain. When she finally, regretfully, pulls back Sheldon regards her with half-lidded eyes and the look is enough to make her breath catch.
“Penny,” he breathes, “are you intoxicated?”
“No,” she replies softly. “Not drunk.”
“Then I take it your physical demonstration means you return my interest?”
“Return your-wait, what?” Penny demands. It’s all that she can say.
“Isn’t it obvious?” At her blank expression, Sheldon gives a look that says clearly, do I have to explain everything? “I have feelings for you.”
Penny feels like the world has been turned on its axis with just those few words, where down is up and wrong is right and Sheldon Lee Cooper is saying I have feelings for you. But it is real, it must be, because Sheldon is looking at her like no one had ever looked at her before, with such clear affection and love in his eyes. She pinches herself anyway, just to be extra sure.
“You were a disturbance at first,” Sheldon continues. “An aberration I should say, to the routine and life I had carefully cultivated. You were loud, colourful, and very often obnoxious. And yet because of you I have been altered irrevocably.” His voice softens. “If somehow I could have it any other way, I wouldn’t change any moment of it.” Penny’s mind is reeling, blank except for the one sure thing running through her head like a mantra.
“The answer is yes,” she says.
“You mean you return my feelings?” he asks, and for the first time that Penny can remember seeing, Sheldon looks uncertain. Penny just smiles at him, brilliantly and hopelessly in love.
“Yes, you idiot.” She kisses him once more, quick at the corner of his mouth, a gentle promise, just because she can. “A thousand times, yes.”
---
The next morning, Penny wakes up tangled in a mess of limbs. Sheldon’s hair is tickling the underside of her chin and her arm has gone to sleep where he is lying on it, but Penny is feeling so light and full of love that it hardly even registers. Carefully, to avoid waking him, she reaches over his prone form to grab her phone from the nightstand.
when i get back to Vancouver, i owe you a freaking gift basket
It only takes a moment for message to come back. It simply says:
HAHAHAHAHA I TOLD YOU SO
Penny settles back into the pillows with a small smile that grows as Sheldon’s arms tighten around her. Warm, content, and loved, she closes her eyes and slips off into sleep and sweet dreams.
For marikatz. Prompt: Penny has a secret crush on Sheldon and plans to tell him on Christmas... but what she doesn't know is that he secretly likes her too... Lots of angst.
When she breaks for the summer, it’s always a relief. Not that she doesn’t love her work, because acting is her life but the early mornings and the fifteen hour days are never easy. And sometimes yeah, she feels like she hasn’t slept in years, but at the end of the day it’s always worth it. Nine months away from family and friends, filming the latest season of Mars, but now she finally gets to go home. She can say goodbye to Vancouver’s rain and biting cold. It’s back to the sunshine and beaches of lovely Pasadena for Penny. And then there’s the other side of it: Halo night, tangerine chicken and splitting dumplings, laundry every Saturday night and at the centre of it all, her boys.
When she finally gets off the plane and into the terminal, her eyes find his face instantly and easily amidst the crowd. Sheldon looks much the same as he always has and it makes her heart clench with a thousand emotions all at once just to see him standing there, tall and awkward and still wearing those horrible, tight comic book T-shirts, some of which are so worn they wouldn’t even make good rags.
The sign he’s holding up says ‘QUEEN PENELOPE’ in large block letters, and it makes her grin so hard her cheeks hurt. Last year, when they had used her actual name, they hadn’t gotten out of the airport for an hour. Sheldon had called it “a previously unknown circle of hell” and had vowed to avoid it at all costs the next time.
When she reaches him she gives him a sloppy hug because she’s tired enough not to care that he still stiffens when she does that. She doesn’t even mind the strange look he gives her when she pulls back like he always does when she does something weird like touch him. Penny just gives him her most blinding smile in response.
“To the Batmobile, Mr. Spock!” she announces, just to make him give her the Look, which he does without fail.
For all her excitement at seeing Sheldon and at being home, she’s still dead on her feet from the flight. It only takes the time for Sheldon to back out of the parking lot for Penny to fall asleep in the passenger seat, head pressed against the car window and sunglasses slipping down her nose. She’s amazed that she only wakes up once they’ve reached the building; Sheldon can drive, but it’s never what one would call a smooth ride. He wakes her in his usual manner, gently shaking her shoulder and saying her name three times over.
“You should continue your sleep inside. The current angle of your neck will only strain your muscles, particularly the sternocleidomastoid. Come on,” he says softly and Penny obliges with sleepy compliance.
She’s still half-asleep as they make their way up to the apartment. Penny stumbles going up the stairs and is only stopped from face planting by a steadying hand on her elbow. After the second time she trips, Sheldon leaves his hand there, a point of warmth that she leans into until their shoulders bump. Later she can claim exhaustion, which isn’t entirely untrue, but for now she allows herself this. Sheldon doesn’t comment nor does he let go until they reach the apartment and he has to search for his keys.
When she finally gets to the bedroom, she falls into it with a happy sigh. The last thing Penny hears before she slips off into blissful sleep is Sheldon saying in an exasperated tone, “Is it really too much to ask for you to take off your shoes?”
---
There was a conversation she had had with one of her co-stars at the wrap party this year that had been repeating over and over in her mind during the plane ride back to Pasadena.
She had been pretty drunk at the time. Anna had sidled up to her, blue cocktail in hand and a teasing expression on her face. “Can you explain to me why I’ve been hearing that you turned down Aaron last night?” she asked, and Penny had almost spilt her drink in her surprise.
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone.” Anna gave Penny her most pointed look. It was pretty effective, Penny had to admit, when she could do nothing but sip guiltily at her drink in response.
“We’re better off being friends.”
“Bullshit. That is the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard! You turned down a perfectly good-looking, rich, funny guy because of that?” She rolled her eyes. “There must be something else. So spill. Boyfriend? Recent break up? Unrequited love?” Something must have shown on her face because Anna had taken one look at her and then burst into laughter.
“Oh my God!” Against her will, Penny flushed.
“He’s just an old friend. And he has no interest in relationships at all, trust me,” she assured her. Anna had just given her an incredulous look.
“Have you seen yourself, girl? You’re totally hot! Of course he wants you.”
“Hot isn’t his type. He’s a physicist.” Penny had said, in the last line mimicking Sheldon’s smug inflection flawlessly.
“Hot is every man’s type. And even scientists have feelings.” Anna looked confident in her assessment and Penny hadn’t really known how to explain to her the mystery that was Sheldon Cooper’s deal. It was still baffling to her on occasion.
“I think this guy would say otherwise.”
“Well, you’ve at least gone for it, right?” At Penny’s embarrassed silence, Anna’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Oh. My. God. You have told him, right?”
“It’s not as simple as that!” At least, it never seemed like that to Penny. Stewing with her feelings wasn’t usually her way of dealing. Normally she would have done something about it by now had the cause of those feelings being anyone else but Sheldon. He still became strange whenever anyone touched him, especially her, and the only thing Sheldon hated more than change was the first Start Trek movie. Penny had surmised all signs pointed to a lost cause.
“No excuses! ‘Cause frankly your reasons suck.” Anna paused a moment to drain the rest of her blue cocktail before fixing her eyes back on Penny. “Alright, this is how it’s going to go. You’re going to go back home and tell this guy how you feel. Then you’re going to have mind-blowing sex for a week. Then you’re going to call me and thank me for being such a fucking awesome friend. Deal?” Penny had laughed despite herself.
“I’m not getting out of this, am I?” she asked, ruefully. Anna had just grinned at her sweetly.
“No. Way. In. Hell.”
---
When she wakes up, she’s under the blanket in Leonard’s room which is technically her room now she supposes. He had moved out last year to live with his girlfriend Mei. Her shoes are off and by the door, and her jacket is folded neatly on the chair by her bed. It’s soft and warm under the covers, and she’s very tempted to stay where she is and sleep another few hours. She’s about to close her eyes again when she gets a tantalising whiff of Chinese food that’s proving hard to resist. The last thing she ate was a buttered dinner roll and some reheated chicken on the flight home which, unsurprisingly, had been very unsatisfying.
When she stumbles into the living room, the whole gang’s there, and for a moment she just stands there and drinks in the sight of them. There’s Howard and Bernadette sharing the one-seater with ease and Raj sitting cross-legged in the space beside the couch. Leonard is occupying one end of the sofa, and Mei sits in a chair pulled up next to him. And finally, as always, there is Sheldon in his spot, the image one of the constants in her world. Warmth spreads from Penny’s chest down to the tips of her toes. This is home for Penny as much as the farm in Omaha.
“Hey, guys,” she says, slipping into her usual seat on the couch between Sheldon and Leonard, a puzzle piece slotting into place. Howard turns in his seat to regard her with a leer.
“Oh Penny, you look more delicious and ravishing every time I see you. In a completely platonic way, of course.” he reassures her, completely unconvincingly.
“Thanks, Howard. I see living with Bernadette hasn’t done a thing for your creepiness. You should really get that checked out.” She exchanges a smile with Raj, who mouths ‘oh, snap’ while Howard gives her an indignant look.
“Penny, I don’t think I’ve thanked you for giving us the lease to your apartment. Howard and I really appreciate it,” Bernadette says, “Also, I checked out that new shoe gallery you told me about, and it was amazing.” Sheldon heaves a sigh and gives Penny a pointed look.
“No problem. Just glad to help.” Penny says, ignoring his dramatics and turning to Leonard instead. “Leonard, can you pass the dumplings?”
“Sure.”
“Hang on, let me grab one before you pass them on.” says Mei. She spears a dumpling on her chopsticks and Sheldon tsks. He turns to her with a disappointed expression.
“As a woman of Chinese descent, I thought you of all people would know that piercing food with your chopsticks is a social faux pas.”
Mei sighs. “Yes, Sheldon, I am disgracing my people, I can see the looks of horror on everyone’s face right now.”
“I sense you’re not taking this seriously, Mei. I can only assume that the implications of the gesture are not clear to you. Let me explain,”
Everyone groans as Sheldon launches into one of his classic laboured explanations. Penny smiles into her chow mein and is happy to be home.
---
It’s been their little tradition since Penny first moved away. It’s the first Friday night since her arrival in Pasadena. Wordlessly, they move in tandem once everyone’s gone. The food containers are cleaned away, the power cords are plugged in, the headsets are on, and they’re ready to go.
“Sheldor the Conqueror and Queen Penelope are online. Hello, minions.”
“Sheldon, didn’t we agree to not call our guild members that anymore? At least not where they can hear?”
“My mistake. Hello, fellow guildies, of slightly inferior standing to Queen Penelope and myself.”
“That’s…almost better.” Penny concedes. It’s really no wonder they have such a high turnover rate for guild members. Not that she actually minds. As long as Sheldor and Penelope are together, there is nothing she has to fear; no human or monster is a match for the team they make.
They’re sitting side by side on the couch, yelling at some Russian fifteen years olds to start hitting the damn dragon already when Penny’s phone goes off. When they finally kill it she checks her phone while Sheldon loots the corpse.
remebr ur promise ;)
When Penny looks back to the couch, she sees Sheldon focused and intent on his laptop and she takes a moment to look at him. His brow is furrowed in concentration and his lips are bitten red, a habit she has noticed every time they enter a particularly harrowing battle. Just below the angle of his jaw is a triangle of freckles, and she can’t look away from them. She wonders what it would be like if she put her mouth there.
“Sheldon?”
“Yes, Penny?” He doesn’t look away from the monitor, his face illuminated by the screen.
I am so fucking in love with you, she thinks.
“Wanna run the Black Castle?” she asks. Sheldon doesn’t seem to notice her too long pause or her frustrated expression when he glances at her.
“Provided we can recruit a competent healer, I am open to the incursion.” he replies. He turns back to his laptop and busies himself with finding someone to join their run. Penny bites her lip and wonders where all her courage has gone.
---
Sheldon is an expert at ignoring signs. There have been people in the past, women and even men on occasion, who have tried for Sheldon, but he had always ignored the interest, never seeing it as having anything to do with him. Herself included. It doesn’t matter what she wears when she is around him, be it her slobbiest clothing, her skimpiest dress or even just her underwear; the way he looks at her never changes. In some ways she likes it, but in others it’s just a cause for endless frustration. Just sometimes Penny wishes that Sheldon would look at her and not see his roommate or his-friend-Penny, but a woman.
---
Penny has taken to invading Sheldon’s laundry nights regularly, partly to keep him company but mostly out of boredom. Tonight she parks herself on the machine next to his, kicking her legs back and forth, and he tells her off, because those lids aren’t made to withstand the weight of the average human body, even if it’s as slight a physique as yours, Penny. She, of course, ignores him. They spend the time talking of everything and nothing. She tells him about the latest script she’s been reading (“I’d get to play a zombie pirate, which could be, you know, interesting”), some of the pranks she’s pulled on her co-stars on set (“Here’s a photo; he hasn’t let me alone in his trailer since”). He tells her about Kripke’s impending transfer to a university interstate (“I feel a joy akin to the first time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy”) and the conspiracy he suspects the cleaners have against him (“The soap dispensers haven’t been refilled in two weeks, and they have yet to dust my office to an acceptable standard”). It’s easy between them, like it always is. By the time they start folding the clothing, Penny is certain she has laughed more in the last hour than she has in months. It doesn’t help that his face is series of twitches as he watches her folding his clothes. She gets through two pairs of socks and a T-shirt before finally he snaps.
“Stop attempting to help me, Penny. You’re only causing an eyesore with your haphazard folding.”
“They look fine!” she protests. To her credit the shirt she’s folded is only a little lopsided.
“They are not fine; they are a travesty. The size of the shirt you’ve just folded is much too big and won’t fit within the allotted space in my drawer. No, at that size it will be encroaching on the area designated for pants. And the socks,” He holds up a pair of balled up socks to her face. “Well, the less said about them the better.”
Penny rolls her eyes and throws another pair of folded socks onto the pile. He glares at her and she makes a face at him in response. Penny catches the twitch of his lips as he turns back to his laundry despite his attempts to hide it and she doesn’t bother to hide her triumphant smile. For a while they stand in companionable silence, only the clack of Sheldon’s folding contraption breaking the quiet. Penny feels content to just be here, the smell of clean clothes and the soothing rhythm of his movements a comfort she hadn’t realised she missed. She hadn’t had to do her own laundry in Vancouver, not with one of her PAs It makes her think of her empty hotel room in Vancouver and the nights she spent missing him, and suddenly Penny remembers with clarity the deal she made with Anna. Just thinking about it makes her stomach flip. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself.
“Sheldon, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Yes, Penny?” he says.
Penny swallows, mouth abruptly gone desert dry. “Sheldon, I-”
“Hello, Sheldon, Penny. I thought I heard your voices.” Bernadette sweeps into the laundry, a basket full of clothes under one arm and a magazine in the other. Penny feels like beating her head on the wall.
“Hello, Bernadette,” says Sheldon. He points out the washers by the wall to her. “I suggest you use the machine three for your delicates and colours in machine one.”
“Thanks, Sheldon.” Bernadette, to Penny’s surprise, actually follows his instructions. “Oh, Penny, Howard found an old photo album of yours behind the bookshelf today.”
“Oh yeah?” she replies, distracted. It takes a moment for Penny to actually register what she says. “Wait a minute. Is that the one filled with pictures from when I was in high school?”
“That’s it. Your cheerleading uniform was really cute, Penny. Howard thought so, too.” Bernadette tells her and Penny’s skin crawls at the thought.
“Right. Okay, I’m just going to go get that back right now.” she says because, ew. Penny turns to go, but before she can leave, Sheldon calls out to her.
“Wait a moment, Penny,” When she turns around, he is regarding her with a curious look. “What is it that you were going to say earlier?”
Penny flicks her eyes to where Bernadette is standing, and she swallows back the words that had been on the tip of her tongue only moments before. Her chance is gone. “Nothing,” she says instead. “Nothing at all.”
---
Christmas creeps up on her somehow. Penny could go to L.A., live up the holiday celebrity-style (which a few years ago, would have been her choice hands down), no questions asked. Instead she’d rather stay here this year and pine for her dorky, particular, eccentric roommate. If she didn’t already know it, that would have been the big indicator, the equivalent of a giant neon sign flashing on her forehead the words ‘IN TOO DEEP’.
Penny wishes sometimes that she could just get over it. Save herself the trouble. It still doesn’t change the fact that she believes that Sheldon Cooper is the best thing that ever happened to her. He has always seen her as she is, never just a pretty face, and he has never expected her to be something she’s not. He’s the one person in her life to really challenge her and to push her to challenge herself. After all, it was Sheldon who encouraged her to audition for her the title role on Mars in the first place, albeit in his own Sheldon-esque way. To lose him because she wanted something he wasn’t willing to give...well. She doesn’t want to imagine it; she can’t even bring herself to. Sheldon Cooper is not someone she can just get over.
---
“There’s nothing like the smell of paint on a Saturday morning, is there?”
“You said it.”
Penny peeks around the corner of their little bunker only to pull back a moment later to avoid the barrage of shots fired at her.
“Leonard, your girlfriend is trying to kill us again,” she tells him solemnly.
“Yeah, I really need to talk to her about that sometime. It was fine at first, but now it’s just weird,” he says wryly, and Penny laughs. Mei and Penny aren’t allowed on the same team anymore, not after the first time they played together. While Mei doesn’t have the deadly accuracy of Penny, she more than makes up for it with her sheer aggression, which had made them, to quote Howard, “like the ride of the Valkyries, only without the sort of riding I usually prefer”. Hence their current situation.
“Well, I guess we’d better sit tight until reinforcements arrive. Where the hell is Sheldon anyway?”
“My guess? He’s probably hiding out behind some tree, waiting for us to come save him.”
Penny sits herself down in the dirt and grins. “That’s our self-appointed, fearless leader for you,” she says fondly. Penny can picture it clearly, Sheldon crouching behind a tree, attempting and failing to pull all his long limbs out of view and the thought makes her smile. When she turns to look at him, Leonard is watching her with an unreadable look on his face.
“What?” she asks.
“I’ve meaning to talk to you about that, actually. You and Sheldon,” he says with a forced casualness.
“Oh?” Penny says, her voice light.
“Just. It doesn’t have to be this way forever, you know?” Leonard isn’t looking at her anymore but rather at the figure he’s drawing into the dirt. Penny could act as if she doesn’t know what he means. Knowing Leonard, he’d probably drop it if she did pretend. But there’s also a big part of her that wants to have it all come out into the open and not have to hide it anymore.
“Leonard,” Penny sighs and gives in. “This thing with me and Sheldon? I don’t see it ever changing. I don’t think Sheldon is ever going to want it to change,” she says, and try as she might, she can’t keep the bitterness from her voice.
Leonard gives her a look of pure disbelief. “You’re joking. You do realise that the only reason Sheldon keeps that apartment is because of you, right?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, completely puzzled.
“I mean, it’s not like he needs all that space now that he’s living there by himself most of the year. And when we suggested he find another roommate, he wouldn’t even consider it,” Leonard says.
“Well, you know Sheldon. He’s not exactly what you’d call a people person.”
“That’s not it and you know it,” Leonard retorts, “You’re always travelling these days and, well…I think he just wants you to always have somewhere to come home to.” It’s like a veil being drawn from over her eyes and suddenly she understands exactly what Leonard is saying.
“A 0,0,0,0 thingy.” she murmurs. He gives her a small smile and nods.
“He’s changed a lot because of you, Penny.” Leonard gives a small laugh. “He lets you change the settings on the television, for God’s sake!” He pauses a moment before looking up from the dirt to regard Penny with serious eyes. “I’m just trying to say that maybe it’s not Sheldon who’s afraid of change?” Truth be told, it had never occurred to her before and the new knowledge stuns her into silence.
“Penny?” he asks when she’s been quiet too long.
“I guess we can’t just sit here and wait forever, can we?” she says, slowly. She looks at Leonard and gives him a smile which he returns easily.
“Nope.” he replies simply.
“Right then.” In one smooth movement Penny clicks the safety off her rifle and hefts it up to rest in the crook of her arm. She gives Leonard a wolfish grin. “Let’s show ‘em what we’re made of.”
---
See, the thing is that Penny has had the jocks, the stars of the football team, the jerks, the nice guys and even the nerdy nice guy. None of those relationships ever ended in anything less than a crash and a burn. She’s gotten pretty tired of pulling her heart from underneath the wreckage, waiting for the scars to heal only to do it all over again. She’s twenty-nine now, and it’s been a while since she’s let herself fall in love with anyone. She’s learned to hide her heart from view; once burned, twice shy and all that. Penny guesses she has just forgotten that sometimes the risk is worth it.
Sometimes love is worth it.
---
The Christmas party is in full swing. At this point in time, Penny has kissed four guys (Raj being one of them) and two girls. It’s the damn mistletoe Howard has insisted on, and it seems to be strung up everywhere. Penny thinks they’ve learnt their lesson about leaving the decorating to Howard and Bernadette. Or maybe not, amends Penny wryly as she spots two of her girlfriends making out under the mistletoe in the kitchen. The display has drawn the avid attention of pretty much every heterosexual male in the room.
Except for one. She catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye sneaking into the hallway, probably satisfied with his contribution to tonight’s social gathering. Penny’s heart leaps in her chest, beating hard and fast. She’s seen enough Hallmark movies to know that this is her chance. Penny takes one more long swallow of liquid courage and puts it down with purpose. It does nothing to settle the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, but she follows him anyway. It’s now or never.
When she opens the door to their apartment, Sheldon is there, his back to her as he does his preying mantis routine over his desk, a posture both familiar and endearing. He starts when Penny closes the door behind her and quickly turns to face her with a long-suffering expression.
“Oh, Penny. Haven’t I endured this pagan celebration of Saturnalia long enough?”
“It’s okay, Sheldon. I haven’t come here to drag you back to the party. I know how much you hate having fun,” she teases.
“I don’t see how lowering one’s inhibitions so one may partake in inebriated social interaction can be viewed as ‘fun’,” he mutters, but she ignores him.
“I just came here to tell you something important,” Penny says.
“Alright,” he allows. “Speak your piece.” Sheldon turns to face her fully, the look on his face expectant. Penny feels like the world has contracted into this small room, this careful moment. Time slows. She can’t say a word. Not a single thing. Her whole little speech and everything she planned to say has vanished from her head. She knows with utter certainty that there are no words big enough to describe the overflowing feeling in her chest right now, the one that she can’t keep inside, not anymore. So she does the only thing she can think of. Penny kisses him.
It’s not a perfect kiss. Sheldon goes shock still the moment their lips meet, and Penny has to raise herself to her tiptoes to reach him. But even so, she finds herself growing warm at his touch. It shocks her when his hands first touch her hips, gentle as butterflies, testing the boundaries of what is and isn’t allowed, seeking not to push away but to hold. Carefully, she brings one hand to rest on the nape of his neck and strokes the line of his jaw with her thumb, gently reassuring. Moment by moment, he relaxes into her. Seeing it as permission, Penny presses in closer and to her surprise, Sheldon presses back. This is the moment that the storybooks and the fairytales have always talked about, of that Penny is completely certain. When she finally, regretfully, pulls back Sheldon regards her with half-lidded eyes and the look is enough to make her breath catch.
“Penny,” he breathes, “are you intoxicated?”
“No,” she replies softly. “Not drunk.”
“Then I take it your physical demonstration means you return my interest?”
“Return your-wait, what?” Penny demands. It’s all that she can say.
“Isn’t it obvious?” At her blank expression, Sheldon gives a look that says clearly, do I have to explain everything? “I have feelings for you.”
Penny feels like the world has been turned on its axis with just those few words, where down is up and wrong is right and Sheldon Lee Cooper is saying I have feelings for you. But it is real, it must be, because Sheldon is looking at her like no one had ever looked at her before, with such clear affection and love in his eyes. She pinches herself anyway, just to be extra sure.
“You were a disturbance at first,” Sheldon continues. “An aberration I should say, to the routine and life I had carefully cultivated. You were loud, colourful, and very often obnoxious. And yet because of you I have been altered irrevocably.” His voice softens. “If somehow I could have it any other way, I wouldn’t change any moment of it.” Penny’s mind is reeling, blank except for the one sure thing running through her head like a mantra.
“The answer is yes,” she says.
“You mean you return my feelings?” he asks, and for the first time that Penny can remember seeing, Sheldon looks uncertain. Penny just smiles at him, brilliantly and hopelessly in love.
“Yes, you idiot.” She kisses him once more, quick at the corner of his mouth, a gentle promise, just because she can. “A thousand times, yes.”
---
The next morning, Penny wakes up tangled in a mess of limbs. Sheldon’s hair is tickling the underside of her chin and her arm has gone to sleep where he is lying on it, but Penny is feeling so light and full of love that it hardly even registers. Carefully, to avoid waking him, she reaches over his prone form to grab her phone from the nightstand.
when i get back to Vancouver, i owe you a freaking gift basket
It only takes a moment for message to come back. It simply says:
HAHAHAHAHA I TOLD YOU SO
Penny settles back into the pillows with a small smile that grows as Sheldon’s arms tighten around her. Warm, content, and loved, she closes her eyes and slips off into sleep and sweet dreams.