The Big Crunch Theory
The Big Crunch
n.
- According to this theory, the universe will one day stop expanding. Then, as gravity pulls on the matter, the universe will begin to contract, falling inward until it has collapsed back into a super-hot, super-dense singularity.
It’s inevitable, he knows. Nothing Leonard does, or Penny does will change it. Even he couldn’t change it if he tried, and if he couldn’t alter the outcome to achieve more desirable results, well then, what was the point in the attempt?
Leonard and Penny were clearly a big crunch waiting to happen.
And everyone else was forced to stand on the sidelines and watch as their expansion failed to exceed their escape velocity. If anyone had asked him (which they didn’t, they never did and after that one time he had offered his unsolicited opinion on Penny’s love life and she had responded with a detailed description of the term frostie and followed up with a practical demonstration, he had never offered again.) he could have shown them his calculations, proving the eventual cooling and contraction of Leonard and Penny’s attraction (if one could call it that. Hardly.) until their relationship collapsed around them. He estimated it would take twelve weeks, four days, sixteen hours and forty-two minutes. But he was rounding up, so the actual time may be subject to slight variances.
Since he knew the exact time of their eventual deconstruction, he saw no point in getting involved in any way with Leonard and Penny’s ill-fated romance, and thusly, he kept to himself for the majority of those twelve weeks. Leonard never asked (or possibly even noticed) his lack of group interaction.
Penny, on the other hand, asked continually.
~*~*~*~*~
- there must be a density threshold -- a critical limit -- that will determine if the gravity within the universe is strong enough to halt the expansion and reel everything back in.
“I feel like this is the only time I see you anymore, Sheldon.”
He could hear her (of course) over the rhythmical thwump, thwump, thwump, thwump of his clothes folder; but he increased the velocity at which he flipped the plastic to create an increase in the sound wave, so that he could accurately portray an ignorance of her statement.
“Sheldon.” Her voice was flatter, her mid-west twang eking out slightly and his left eye twitched even as his speed to sound ratio increased. “Sheldon.”
“That statement is clearly false, Penny. This week alone we spent one hundred and three minutes in each other’s presence on Monday, approximately two hundred and seventy-one minutes together on Tuesday, though I didn’t do an accurate count of my social interactions that day - we watched Firefly until it was thirty-six minutes past my appropriate bedtime and I was tired that night. On Wednesday, you were in my company for a total of forty-seven minutes, owing to the fact that you worked a double-shift that day, and-”
“But that’s all group time, and, I mean, well yeah I’ve seen you, but it feels like... I don’t know. Not the same anymore.” Her words were spoken in fits and stops, as if it were a struggle to even convey them properly. Which, clearly it must have been, because he didn’t think she had conveyed them very well. He was certainly at a loss as to what she was attempting to explain.
“It’s not the same anymore.” He continued his folding, never pausing as he spoke. His eyes remained on his work, perfectly aligning the garments to achieve optimal space conservation in the folding. “Variables have changed, Penny, and when any variable changes, the solution must reflect that change. Really - it’s simple math, Penny.”
“But why does the variable changing have to make you all... distant? And grumpy?”
“Penny, I can hardly be held accountable for the outcome of the equation when it is not my variable that has changed value.”
“What?” She was frowning, and sweet baby Jesus, balling her socks. His hands stopped moving as he paused to glare at her while she paired socks up only to treat them to a slow and painful death at her hands as she inverted one into the other.
“I am simply waiting it out. After weighing all the possible outcomes, I have decided that this is the most logical.”
“Waiting what out, sweetie?” Her socks continued to meet their matches and then meet their inevitable end, causing his left arm to jerk outward, as if trying to save their poor, doomed cotton souls.
“You shouldn’t fold your socks like that. Though I am using the term ‘fold’ facetiously - clearly you are not folding them at all, simply stuffing them together and turning them inside out. That manner of storage stretches out the elastic woven into the cotton and decreases the life expectancy of your socks by 33.7 percent.” His left arm stopped jerking, and he felt better for having corrected her. He selected his next garment from his basket and began to align it on the board. She simply stared at him for a beat, before grabbing two more socks and balling them together in an excruciatingly slow manner.
“Stop avoiding the question. Waiting out what, Sheldon?”
“Technically it was evading the question - not avoiding it. Had I avoided it, you would not be asking again.”
“Sheldon!”
“Fine. Waiting out the inevitable end of your ill-fated relationship with Leonard.”
“Are you for serious?” She dropped the socks she was intent on torturing and turned to face him squarely, her arms akimbo as she glared at him.
“I’m not sure. How does one accomplish being ‘for serious’?” He continued to fold as if his very life depended on it. He can see that Penny is clearly in stage two of her designated anger levels, and if she reached stage five - well, his life very well may depend on his speed.
“Leonard is your friend, Sheldon. And I’m your friend too! You are supposed to support us, not wait for our inevitable doom!” She was moving forward marginally with each word, until she was almost brushing against his left side.
“I fail to see how supporting a friend during a questionable enterprise makes one a good friend. If one of your friends were about to take on a clearly erroneous endeavour, would you not be a better friend if you attempted to stop them? However, I do see your point, and in my defence, I was attempting to be a good friend. By not pointing out to both you and Leonard all the ways this is doomed to failure. I have kept my opinion to myself, because as you and my mother are so fond of telling me, if I have nothing nice to say, I should not say anything at all.” As he spoke he placed the last perfectly folded shirt into his laundry basket, before turning to her. “Do you need assistance with your laundry, Penny, or may I go now?”
She was staring at him, slack-jawed and unblinking. A look of annoyance finally crossed her face and she removed her hands from her hips to throw them in the air while sighing loudly. “Me and Leonard could work out, Sheldon. And-”
“Leonard and I, Penny. And no, you couldn’t. You both have terrible track records when it comes to relationships.” He shook his head as he talked to her. “Given that this relationship started after a long separation, during which you did not have very much contact, and the fact that you have been ‘working through’ such obstacles as dissatisfactory coitus, differing backgrounds, lack of any social interactions outside of group activities and said coitus, failure to-”
“Sheldon! Just - stop it, okay? Why are you just telling me all of this now?”
“You asked now. You did not ask before.”
“I did too! When Leonard and I were having the ‘dissatisfying coitus’!”
“And I believe I told you then that you could always remain friends. You chose to ignore my advice, and pursue this relationship with Leonard.” Her face was flushing, and he was ninety percent certain it was anger causing her cutaneous blood flow to increase. Stage three.
“Fine. At what point are you going to stop sulking and accept that Leonard and I are a couple?”
“Firstly, I am not sulking, Penny. I am simply refusing to invest my social time in a doomed endeavour. Secondly, approximately four weeks, three days, seven hours and-” He checked his watch as he spoke, calculating the time left, “forty minutes from now.”
“Are you- oh my God- Sheldon, just - just- ugh!” Her voice rose as she threw her unfolded clothes into her basket before snatching it off the table. She glared at him one more time before stalking out of the laundry room and slamming the door behind her.
Sheldon simply placed his basket on the table before turning to assess the time remaining in his wash and dry cycles and synchronizing his watch accordingly.
~*~*~*~*~
- If omega (Ω) is greater than 1, then the universe will be closed. But cosmologists think there is another type of matter that can't be seen. This dark matter may account for much more of the universe than ordinary, visible matter and may have enough gravity to stop, and then reverse, the expansion.
She was in his room.
“You cannot be in my room, Penny.”
“I know, sweetie. I’m sorry, but I had a horrible shift, my feet are killing me, I had a customer grab my ass four times today, another one kept talking to me like I was an idiot and all I wanted was to come home and get a bath and go to sleep, but the people in 5B are having a stomp reunion, or something. I came over here, but Leonard assumed I was here for sex, we had a fight, he didn’t even ask how my day went - you know, he seriously said he never asks that because he assumes that my day can’t be that bad - because waitressing is such a mindless task! It was awkward being out in the living room post-fight, and I can’t go to his room, because I may just set his sheets on fire and I can’t go home because of the stomping, and you weren’t here so I just needed to lie down and cry!” She somehow manages to say all of this without taking a breath, and he stares for a moment in the ensuing silence as she takes a much needed breath.
“This is my room, Penny.”
“I know, okay?!”
“I am sorry your day went badly.” He paused, with his hands folded in front of him as he shifted from foot to foot with uncertainty. “I imagine your occupation must be much more susceptible to frustration than mine, on account of the human variable factor. Most days I rather enjoy not having to interact with others, I must say.” He placed his messenger bag on the appropriate hook on his door, before turning to cross the room and sit on the edge of his bed. Awkwardly patting her shoulder, he leaned forward. “There, there.”
“What if you were right? I mean, that’s stupid question, isn’t it? You’re always effing right. Leonard didn’t even ask why I was in such a bad mood. He didn’t even wait to assess my mood at all, he just- gah!” She sat up as she spoke, pushing his hand off her shoulder and turning to face him. Her eyes were reddened and her face showed signs of swelling, especially in the periorbital edema. He had no idea what the accurate response was for this social situation, so he simply remained quiet as she spoke. “I hate this. I hate fighting, I hate feeling like this - I thought Leonard would be different from all those other guys. I thought he saw me - me, not just my body.”
“Of course he sees you, Penny. His mind is simply clouded by hormonal reactions at the moment. It will pass.” Leonard was his friend, and he was not normally insufficient in that area.
“No, he doesn’t Sheldon. You were right - we changed the variables and the solution sucks now!” She had started crying again, reaching out and wrapping her arms awkwardly around his arms as she cried into his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine that to be comfortable, as his body fat percentage in his upper body was rather low. He was uncomfortably aware of her tears making his shirt damp. He was surprised by how much heat the tears themselves generated - having never been cried on in this manner before, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“Did you know that the chemical composition of tears changes when the precursor to crying is emotionally-based, rather than biologically based? Also, humans are the only known animal to produce tears in response to emotional states. It’s fascinating.” His arms remained pinned to his sides as he spoke, and after a moment her crying slowed and she sniffled as she let out a watery chuckle. She released his arms, but she kept her face cushioned against his shoulder.
“No, I did not know that.”
“I’m not sure if it will help alleviate your emotional state, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.” He lifted his arm again, patting her shoulder anxiously twice.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you in the laundry room the other day. What you said upset me.”
“It was not my intention to upset you, Penny. Though I should have known better, as the truth seems to produce that reaction in others quite often. I don’t understand why.”
“Sometimes the truth hurts, Sheldon.”
“That seems unreasonable to me - why would people hold truth in such esteem if it hurt them?” He frowned asshe stared down at the top of her head. She laughed against his shoulder again, and her breath tickled at the side of his neck, making him uncomfortable. To distract himself he started counting the various shades in her hair, counting up to seventeen before she responded.
“I don’t know.” She sighed, and that tickled even more, causing his insides to shift in a curious manner. He recognized the sensation and froze. “I guess because even if it hurts, it feels better afterward to just know.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Not yet. But I’ll get there.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Some cosmologists now think that something else -- something just as inexplicable and unobservable as dark matter -- is lurking in the universe.
In the end he was wrong.
Well, not wrong, but his calculations had been off by two weeks. He could easily explain this, however - his conversation with Penny in the laundry room had added a new variable and altered the solution to the equation.
Leonard refused to speak to Penny afterward. Sheldon theorized that this was due to several factors, such as ego and pride. Perhaps some hurt feelings, but Sheldon failed to see how terribly attached Leonard could have gotten in a mere ten weeks. Leonard did not appreciate it when Sheldon pointed this out.
Their schedule continued on, minus Penny, of course; and Sheldon found himself increasingly dissatisfied with their usual habits. Thai night was not as enjoyable, because Leonard habitually forgot some aspect of Sheldon’s order.
Penny always remembered it.
Halo night was less of a challenge, as Sheldon could easily defeat any of the others with little to no effort needed.
He had liked the thrill of a battle he had every chance of losing when he played with Penny.
Wii bowling night was still somewhat similar; but Sheldon found he missed the badly rhymed chants Penny would come up with from the couch. Usually while in his spot.
After two weeks, he found he could not take it anymore. “Leonard, I am sorry to inform you that Tuesday and Saturday nights we can no longer spend together. I need my Tuesday hamburger, and I have made space in my schedule on Saturday night so that I may reacquire my allotted amount of time to spend with Penny.”
“Oh, like she’ll want to spend alone time with you, Sheldon. She hung out with us because of me - but go ahead. Allot your time for Penny. Does this mean I can whistle in the apartment while you’re off with her?” Leonard was frowning in a disconcerted manner as he tilted his head even further back to display his annoyance with the schedule change. In other words; his words said he was fine with it, but the degree of his neck tilt seemed to say he was most definitely not okay with the change.
“No. I’ll know if you whistle.”
“You couldn’t possibly know if I whistle-”
“It disturbs the frequency at which the air resonates. No whistling Leonard. I mean it.”
“Fine.” Leonard sighed in dejection before cheering up slightly. “Today is Tuesday, does this mean you won’t be home all evening?”
“Precisely. I shall be at the Cheesecake Factory, enjoying my Tuesday hamburger.”
“Yeah. Have fun with that. Tell Penny I don’t miss her at all.”
“Why would I blatantly lie to her like that? Your change in diet and hygiene clearly indicate that you do-”
“Goodbye, Sheldon.” Leonard cut him off before he could finish his sentence, and exited the cafeteria before Sheldon could even protest.
~*~*~*~*~
- They sometimes refer to this invisible stuff as dark energy. Unlike gravity, which pulls on the universe and slows its expansion, dark energy pushes on the universe and works to speed up the expansion.
“I need that table.”
“That table seats four, sir. You could just take this table for two and-”
“Yes but that table is not in Penny’s section. I need to be in Penny’s section - she is the only employee here who places my order accurately and in a timely fashion. Also, that table is too close to the door, I will be subject to a constant draft. There are only two tables in Penny’s section that seat two people - one obstructs my view of the kitchen - I like to watch my food being prepared - and the other is in close proximity to the washrooms, and thusly subjected to airborne bacteria every time someone enters or exits the washrooms.” The hostess blinked for a moment, before shrugging.
“Whatever - it’s Tuesday. We’re never full tonight anyway.” She slapped a menu on the table before Sheldon could inform her he had no need of a menu, especially given the fact that he had yet to see any of the staff here sanitize them after use. “Penny! Customer!”
Sheldon arranged the cutlery to his liking, inspecting each utensil as he waited for Penny to arrive. “Sheldon! What are you doing here?” Penny’s smile was wide as she greeted him, walking up next to his table and leaning a hip against it.
“It’s Tuesday, Penny.”
“Yeah - but you haven’t been in for two weeks. I thought that you’d found a new hamburger.”
“Yes, well,” He sighed gustily as he looked up toward her. “I do apologize for that, but Leonard refused to come. I acquiesced to his demands for as long as I could tolerate it, but I had to put my foot down. Tuesday and Saturday nights are now scheduled for time with you, so as not to upset the group dynamic.”
“Saturdays?”
“It’s laundry night. As we often do laundry together I thought we could also spend quality time together that evening while accomplishing our laundry goals at the same time.”
“Saturdays are date nights, Sheldon.” She smiled as she spoke and he frowned in response.
“Oh. I had forgotten that. Well, how about this - should a date impede on our laundry night, you can let me know no less than three days prior and we can re-schedule accordingly or reconvene the following Saturday. I’ll add it to the contract.” Penny smiled brightly before placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it lightly.
“Okay sweetie, that sounds great. I’ve missed you, you know! I’m just gonna go let the kitchen know your order and then I’ll bring you your drink. You’re an hour later than usual, you know.” She picked up his useless menu before shooting him a small grin and walking off to the kitchen. Sheldon looked down at his eating utensils and found them in a satisfactory state of cleanliness and in good order, so he allowed his mind to focus on the equations he had been working on this afternoon in his office. When Penny reappeared at his side and placed a drink in front of him, he spoke as if she had never left.
“I am an hour later on purpose, Penny. You have ninety minutes left in your shift, so that by the time I have eaten my food and allowed a proper period of digestive rest, you will be finished and we can leave together. I will ask you about your day on the car ride home, and then if you are agreeable, we can spend the evening in a relaxing manner.”
“Nice to know my agreement was thought of anyway.”
“Oh of course it was! I thought we could play Halo this evening.” A frown crossed her face and she shifted next to him uneasily.
“Sheldon, sweetie, the Xbox is at your place, and I don’t really think that Leonard would-”
“Oh not to worry, I’ve thought of that. This morning I purchased a second system and a second Halo 3 game, and set them up in your apartment. I also hooked it up via our wifi signal - Leonard will never know. I may have also cleaned your apartment - I couldn’t help it, Penny. You had your china and cutlery sorted all wrong, in addition to the fact that you are clearly behind on the laundry and dusting schedule I wrote out for you.” He glanced up as he spoke to see Penny staring at him with an indiscernible expression on her face.
“Sweetie, you didn’t have to - I can’t accept that-”
“No, Penny, you must. I find that my Halo skills are in decline without you to challenge me. If I make our Tuesday evenings a secondary Halo night, then my skill will make marked improvements.”
She stared for one more moment before leaning down and hugging him tightly, for four seconds. One second longer than appropriate contact, but he found that he did not mind this once. “Thank you, sweetie. I’m going to go get your food now, okay?”
“Thank you Penny.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Let's imagine for a moment that the density of the universe is above the critical value required to stop expansion. As gravity within the universe pulled everything back, galaxy clusters would draw closer together.
It was their third Sheldon/Penny laundry night; Leonard was still refusing to acknowledge Penny’s existence and Sheldon continued to spend Tuesday and Saturday nights with her, as per their contract. Currently, this evening he had decided to ease her into science-fiction and they were watching the Battlestar Galactica mini-series.
“Oh, did I tell you that I had an audition this week?” Penny whispered to him while she leaned over her arm of the couch and he sighed, before pausing the DVD again.
“You cannot talk, Penny! The mini-series of this show consists of a series of important plot twists, and you must pay attention if you are to have any hope of following it!”
“Yeah, you said that last time. And the four times you paused it before that.”
“Yet you still insist on talking.”
“Because I know you’ll pause it and listen.” She smiled widely and he opened his mouth to argue before realizing that she was correct.
“Can’t you just keep a notebook next to you,; in which you can write down all the things you wish to discuss and then bring them up in an orderly fashion during laundry breaks?”
“No.” She looked at him as if he were of subpar intelligence. “Then I’d miss the plot points because I’m writing all the time.”
He sighed in defeat before turning toward the sofa. “Fine. How did your audition go?”
“Great! It was for a role on a soap opera - which I swore I’d never do that to myself, but I need something, and some big name actors started on soaps. Like Josh Duhamel!”
“Josh who?”
“The army guy from Transformers.”
“Penny, there were several army guys in that movie. Be specific.”
“The guy! With the wife and kid he’s never seen!”
“Alright, I know whom you are speaking of, please continue.”
“Sometimes, Sheldon, I swear I should get paid to talk to you. This is hard work.” She paused to glare at him for a moment, before her gaze soften and she glanced away. “Anyway, the audition went good, I think. I’ll find out next week if I got the part or not. It’d be great if I did - because it’s full-time. I could quit the Cheesecake Factory and be paid to act. That’d be fabulous.”
“What would I do for Hamburger Tuesday?” He sat up straighter in concern, and she waved him off.
“Oh sweetie, we can still go. I just won’t serve you - but don’t worry, I’ll make sure your order is right.” He sank back in relief and she smiled.
“Well then, that will be fine. Also - I don’t know why soap opera jobs are so distasteful to actors - unlike movies or dramatic or comedic television series, soap operas seemingly go on forever, with no end in sight. Therefore your pay check would be reliable. Unless your character is done away with. You must ensure that the viewing audience sympathizes greatly with your character, Penny. Writing alone does not seem to do this for most characters, so your acting must make up for the deficiency in writing.”
She was staring at him in amazement, her mouth open. “Do I even want to know how you know all of that?”
“My MeeMaw was an avid fan of The Young and the Restless as well as All My Children.”
“Of course she was.” Penny spoke softly, the corner of her mouth tilting upward. Sheldon’s watch beeped in response and he sighed before standing.
“And now it’s time to switch our laundry loads. You know, at this rate, it will take us approximately four weeks just to finish the mini-series Penny.”
She bounced up from her seat with an apologetic glance. “I won’t talk when we come back, I promise.”
“My mother has a saying about making promises you cannot uphold, Penny.”
“I’m sure she does, sweetie.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Then individual galaxies would begin to merge until, after billions of years, one mega-galaxy would form.
Leonard took close to six months to come around and finally forgive Penny. He just sat down at lunch on Halo night and looked at Sheldon. “I was thinking it’d be great if Penny could come over for Halo night. Can you ask her?”
“Yes.” He responded shortly as he turned this turn of events over in his mind. “Leonard, you aren’t going to try to date her again, are you?” He looked as horrified by the thought as he felt.
“No!” Leonard’s voice burst forth into the tense silence. “God, no. Penny and I - I mean, I knew before we broke up that we would. It never felt right, but I didn’t want to have been wrong all that time. I wanted to be right.” Leonard shrugged uneasily and Sheldon nodded in agreement.
“Well I can see why you’d want that.”
“Anyway, I’ve been a bit ridiculous about the whole thing-”
“A bit?!” Sheldon questioned him in shock.
“Okay, a lot. But it’s so hard to apologize once it’s been so long, and then you just... don’t, because it’s easier.”
“Well, you are an avoider.” Sheldon acknowledged, before continuing to eat his meal.
“Exactly! I totally am. So I was hoping you could ask her over tonight? Since she inexplicably still hangs out with you twice a week and all.” Leonard was moving his food around his plate as he spoke, but not actually eating any of it.
“Well yes, I can ask her. I cannot promise she will come, however. It will be her choice.” Sheldon stood and picked up his now empty tray. “I’m finished my meal. I will see you after work, Leonard. I will knock on Penny’s door this afternoon and issue the invitation.”
---
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
“Hey, sweetie, what can I do for you?” Penny’s smile was large as she greeted him at the door. “You do know it’s Monday, right?”
“Yes, I was aware of that. Leonard has asked that I invite you over for Halo night, if you would like.” He folded his hands as he awaited her response.
“Are you serious? Yes! I would love to go to Halo night.” She began stepping out immediately, pulling the door shut behind her. She froze right in front of Sheldon, looking up at him warily. “Wait a minute. He doesn’t want to - he just wants to be friends, right?”
“Leonard has said that he harbours no romantic tendencies toward you. I asked.”
Penny looked up at him with a glowing smile. “You asked? How come? I mean, why?” She corrected herself with a shake of her head before tilting back on her heels and folding her arms and giving him the very serious look. He had to plan his words very carefully when she gave him the very serious look.
“My reasons were two-fold. First, I did not want to lure you over to our apartment, only to be subjected to Leonard flirting with you and making you uncomfortable. And frankly, me too. Second, this would result in pain and rejection for Leonard, and I did not want to see him hurt.” He was matter-of-fact about it, as he kept his hands clasped and watched her as he spoke, looking for any sign that he had answered incorrectly.
“Why would Leonard flirting with me make you uncomfortable?”
Sheldon blinked at her blankly for a moment. He had not thought about that. “I had not thought about that. Just that it would make me uncomfortable.” Penny stepped closer to him, until her body was almost brushing his. He could feel her hair tickling his arms as it fell from where she tilted her head.
“Maybe you should think about why. Maybe it’s important.” She whispered the words before stepping away and moving across the hall before opening the door with a thud and a loudly exclaimed “Well, I’m glad we finally got all that crap over with. Fighting is way too stressful.”
~*~*~*~*~
- At the end, nothing would remain but a super-hot, super-dense singularity -- the seed of another universe. Many astronomers think the seed would germinate in a "big bounce," starting the whole process over again.
He thought about it for seventeen hours and thirty-six minutes.
Until Leonard assumed that he was now automatically re-invited to Hamburger Tuesday. He was not, and Sheldon said so. Leonard had been shocked silent as Sheldon had explained that he and Penny had a separate contract, outside of the group contract. Tuesday’s were Hamburgers with Penny Night now, and he would not alter his new schedule, as he found it was far superior to his previous one.
Halfway through his rant, Sheldon realized why he did not want Leonard to flirt with Penny. He did not want them together again, because it would take Penny away from him. He liked his Tuesdays and Saturdays. They were his favourite days of the week; he looked forward to them immensely. He liked them immensely because he liked her immensely.
This realization hit Leonard and Sheldon at the same time.
“You like her, don’t you?” Leonard’s voice was high and strangled. Sheldon felt as though his own vocal chords must be reacting to something in the room, because he could not even speak, he could only nod and cringe.
“Sheldon. You like Penny. Like a girl! I never thought you’d ever-”Leonard’s words cut out and he stared at Sheldon with an open face. “You should go for it, Sheldon.”
Sheldon had theorized many reactions for Leonard in the .237 milliseconds between his nod and Leonard’s response, but none of them had included this. He simply stared at Leonard incredulously.
“I’m serious. We weren’t right together, but you like her Sheldon. This is the first, maybe only girl I’ve seen you feel anything for. If you don’t find out, you’ll regret never knowing. Tell her.”
Sheldon thought about it. Right before he looked Leonard in the eye, nodded and exited their apartment.
He didn’t knock on Penny’s door. He used the emergency key to let himself in while she stood in the doorway of her bedroom and watched him with shocked eyes.
“You didn’t knock.” She spoke in a disbelieving tone and he nodded in shocked agreement.
His heart beat against his ribcage painfully, in a triple beat. “Penny.” He started and stopped, his heart beating painfully three more times. “Penny-” Thud, thud, thud, he gathered his courage to walk over to where she stood. “Penny. Did you know that I knew you and Leonard would fail because you were like a closed universe? The universe, Penny, can be closed, open, or flat. If it’s closed, it will expand to a certain point before collapsing in on itself and contracting until it consumes itself. If it’s open, it will expand infinitely, never ending. And if it’s flat it will expand until all the energy is expended and the temperature drops and kills every living thing in it.”
Penny was frowning in confusion as she placed her hands on his arms bracingly. “Sweetie, what are you talking about?”
“You and Leonard were a closed universe. You collapsed and contracted. Some cosmologists think that after the contraction, or the big crunch, if you will, the contracted universe will react and implode again. A new big bang, a new universe.”
“I am not following you at all, Sheldon. What are you talking about?”
“I want to be the new universe. Penny, I didn’t want Leonard to flirt with you, because I didn’t want you to get back together, because I didn’t want to share you. I like you Penny.” He stopped speaking with a gasp, looking down at her with a horrified expression. His heart beat in the silence. One. Two. Three.
Her hands tightened on his forearms as she yanked him forward with a grin. The air felt charged and time was relative as she pulled him forward until her mouth met his.
Bang.
n.
- A model of the future of the universe in which it stops expanding and ultimately collapses on itself due to the force of gravity of its constituent parts.
- The point at which such a collapse occurs.
- According to this theory, the universe will one day stop expanding. Then, as gravity pulls on the matter, the universe will begin to contract, falling inward until it has collapsed back into a super-hot, super-dense singularity.
It’s inevitable, he knows. Nothing Leonard does, or Penny does will change it. Even he couldn’t change it if he tried, and if he couldn’t alter the outcome to achieve more desirable results, well then, what was the point in the attempt?
Leonard and Penny were clearly a big crunch waiting to happen.
And everyone else was forced to stand on the sidelines and watch as their expansion failed to exceed their escape velocity. If anyone had asked him (which they didn’t, they never did and after that one time he had offered his unsolicited opinion on Penny’s love life and she had responded with a detailed description of the term frostie and followed up with a practical demonstration, he had never offered again.) he could have shown them his calculations, proving the eventual cooling and contraction of Leonard and Penny’s attraction (if one could call it that. Hardly.) until their relationship collapsed around them. He estimated it would take twelve weeks, four days, sixteen hours and forty-two minutes. But he was rounding up, so the actual time may be subject to slight variances.
Since he knew the exact time of their eventual deconstruction, he saw no point in getting involved in any way with Leonard and Penny’s ill-fated romance, and thusly, he kept to himself for the majority of those twelve weeks. Leonard never asked (or possibly even noticed) his lack of group interaction.
Penny, on the other hand, asked continually.
~*~*~*~*~
- there must be a density threshold -- a critical limit -- that will determine if the gravity within the universe is strong enough to halt the expansion and reel everything back in.
“I feel like this is the only time I see you anymore, Sheldon.”
He could hear her (of course) over the rhythmical thwump, thwump, thwump, thwump of his clothes folder; but he increased the velocity at which he flipped the plastic to create an increase in the sound wave, so that he could accurately portray an ignorance of her statement.
“Sheldon.” Her voice was flatter, her mid-west twang eking out slightly and his left eye twitched even as his speed to sound ratio increased. “Sheldon.”
“That statement is clearly false, Penny. This week alone we spent one hundred and three minutes in each other’s presence on Monday, approximately two hundred and seventy-one minutes together on Tuesday, though I didn’t do an accurate count of my social interactions that day - we watched Firefly until it was thirty-six minutes past my appropriate bedtime and I was tired that night. On Wednesday, you were in my company for a total of forty-seven minutes, owing to the fact that you worked a double-shift that day, and-”
“But that’s all group time, and, I mean, well yeah I’ve seen you, but it feels like... I don’t know. Not the same anymore.” Her words were spoken in fits and stops, as if it were a struggle to even convey them properly. Which, clearly it must have been, because he didn’t think she had conveyed them very well. He was certainly at a loss as to what she was attempting to explain.
“It’s not the same anymore.” He continued his folding, never pausing as he spoke. His eyes remained on his work, perfectly aligning the garments to achieve optimal space conservation in the folding. “Variables have changed, Penny, and when any variable changes, the solution must reflect that change. Really - it’s simple math, Penny.”
“But why does the variable changing have to make you all... distant? And grumpy?”
“Penny, I can hardly be held accountable for the outcome of the equation when it is not my variable that has changed value.”
“What?” She was frowning, and sweet baby Jesus, balling her socks. His hands stopped moving as he paused to glare at her while she paired socks up only to treat them to a slow and painful death at her hands as she inverted one into the other.
“I am simply waiting it out. After weighing all the possible outcomes, I have decided that this is the most logical.”
“Waiting what out, sweetie?” Her socks continued to meet their matches and then meet their inevitable end, causing his left arm to jerk outward, as if trying to save their poor, doomed cotton souls.
“You shouldn’t fold your socks like that. Though I am using the term ‘fold’ facetiously - clearly you are not folding them at all, simply stuffing them together and turning them inside out. That manner of storage stretches out the elastic woven into the cotton and decreases the life expectancy of your socks by 33.7 percent.” His left arm stopped jerking, and he felt better for having corrected her. He selected his next garment from his basket and began to align it on the board. She simply stared at him for a beat, before grabbing two more socks and balling them together in an excruciatingly slow manner.
“Stop avoiding the question. Waiting out what, Sheldon?”
“Technically it was evading the question - not avoiding it. Had I avoided it, you would not be asking again.”
“Sheldon!”
“Fine. Waiting out the inevitable end of your ill-fated relationship with Leonard.”
“Are you for serious?” She dropped the socks she was intent on torturing and turned to face him squarely, her arms akimbo as she glared at him.
“I’m not sure. How does one accomplish being ‘for serious’?” He continued to fold as if his very life depended on it. He can see that Penny is clearly in stage two of her designated anger levels, and if she reached stage five - well, his life very well may depend on his speed.
“Leonard is your friend, Sheldon. And I’m your friend too! You are supposed to support us, not wait for our inevitable doom!” She was moving forward marginally with each word, until she was almost brushing against his left side.
“I fail to see how supporting a friend during a questionable enterprise makes one a good friend. If one of your friends were about to take on a clearly erroneous endeavour, would you not be a better friend if you attempted to stop them? However, I do see your point, and in my defence, I was attempting to be a good friend. By not pointing out to both you and Leonard all the ways this is doomed to failure. I have kept my opinion to myself, because as you and my mother are so fond of telling me, if I have nothing nice to say, I should not say anything at all.” As he spoke he placed the last perfectly folded shirt into his laundry basket, before turning to her. “Do you need assistance with your laundry, Penny, or may I go now?”
She was staring at him, slack-jawed and unblinking. A look of annoyance finally crossed her face and she removed her hands from her hips to throw them in the air while sighing loudly. “Me and Leonard could work out, Sheldon. And-”
“Leonard and I, Penny. And no, you couldn’t. You both have terrible track records when it comes to relationships.” He shook his head as he talked to her. “Given that this relationship started after a long separation, during which you did not have very much contact, and the fact that you have been ‘working through’ such obstacles as dissatisfactory coitus, differing backgrounds, lack of any social interactions outside of group activities and said coitus, failure to-”
“Sheldon! Just - stop it, okay? Why are you just telling me all of this now?”
“You asked now. You did not ask before.”
“I did too! When Leonard and I were having the ‘dissatisfying coitus’!”
“And I believe I told you then that you could always remain friends. You chose to ignore my advice, and pursue this relationship with Leonard.” Her face was flushing, and he was ninety percent certain it was anger causing her cutaneous blood flow to increase. Stage three.
“Fine. At what point are you going to stop sulking and accept that Leonard and I are a couple?”
“Firstly, I am not sulking, Penny. I am simply refusing to invest my social time in a doomed endeavour. Secondly, approximately four weeks, three days, seven hours and-” He checked his watch as he spoke, calculating the time left, “forty minutes from now.”
“Are you- oh my God- Sheldon, just - just- ugh!” Her voice rose as she threw her unfolded clothes into her basket before snatching it off the table. She glared at him one more time before stalking out of the laundry room and slamming the door behind her.
Sheldon simply placed his basket on the table before turning to assess the time remaining in his wash and dry cycles and synchronizing his watch accordingly.
~*~*~*~*~
- If omega (Ω) is greater than 1, then the universe will be closed. But cosmologists think there is another type of matter that can't be seen. This dark matter may account for much more of the universe than ordinary, visible matter and may have enough gravity to stop, and then reverse, the expansion.
She was in his room.
“You cannot be in my room, Penny.”
“I know, sweetie. I’m sorry, but I had a horrible shift, my feet are killing me, I had a customer grab my ass four times today, another one kept talking to me like I was an idiot and all I wanted was to come home and get a bath and go to sleep, but the people in 5B are having a stomp reunion, or something. I came over here, but Leonard assumed I was here for sex, we had a fight, he didn’t even ask how my day went - you know, he seriously said he never asks that because he assumes that my day can’t be that bad - because waitressing is such a mindless task! It was awkward being out in the living room post-fight, and I can’t go to his room, because I may just set his sheets on fire and I can’t go home because of the stomping, and you weren’t here so I just needed to lie down and cry!” She somehow manages to say all of this without taking a breath, and he stares for a moment in the ensuing silence as she takes a much needed breath.
“This is my room, Penny.”
“I know, okay?!”
“I am sorry your day went badly.” He paused, with his hands folded in front of him as he shifted from foot to foot with uncertainty. “I imagine your occupation must be much more susceptible to frustration than mine, on account of the human variable factor. Most days I rather enjoy not having to interact with others, I must say.” He placed his messenger bag on the appropriate hook on his door, before turning to cross the room and sit on the edge of his bed. Awkwardly patting her shoulder, he leaned forward. “There, there.”
“What if you were right? I mean, that’s stupid question, isn’t it? You’re always effing right. Leonard didn’t even ask why I was in such a bad mood. He didn’t even wait to assess my mood at all, he just- gah!” She sat up as she spoke, pushing his hand off her shoulder and turning to face him. Her eyes were reddened and her face showed signs of swelling, especially in the periorbital edema. He had no idea what the accurate response was for this social situation, so he simply remained quiet as she spoke. “I hate this. I hate fighting, I hate feeling like this - I thought Leonard would be different from all those other guys. I thought he saw me - me, not just my body.”
“Of course he sees you, Penny. His mind is simply clouded by hormonal reactions at the moment. It will pass.” Leonard was his friend, and he was not normally insufficient in that area.
“No, he doesn’t Sheldon. You were right - we changed the variables and the solution sucks now!” She had started crying again, reaching out and wrapping her arms awkwardly around his arms as she cried into his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine that to be comfortable, as his body fat percentage in his upper body was rather low. He was uncomfortably aware of her tears making his shirt damp. He was surprised by how much heat the tears themselves generated - having never been cried on in this manner before, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“Did you know that the chemical composition of tears changes when the precursor to crying is emotionally-based, rather than biologically based? Also, humans are the only known animal to produce tears in response to emotional states. It’s fascinating.” His arms remained pinned to his sides as he spoke, and after a moment her crying slowed and she sniffled as she let out a watery chuckle. She released his arms, but she kept her face cushioned against his shoulder.
“No, I did not know that.”
“I’m not sure if it will help alleviate your emotional state, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.” He lifted his arm again, patting her shoulder anxiously twice.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you in the laundry room the other day. What you said upset me.”
“It was not my intention to upset you, Penny. Though I should have known better, as the truth seems to produce that reaction in others quite often. I don’t understand why.”
“Sometimes the truth hurts, Sheldon.”
“That seems unreasonable to me - why would people hold truth in such esteem if it hurt them?” He frowned asshe stared down at the top of her head. She laughed against his shoulder again, and her breath tickled at the side of his neck, making him uncomfortable. To distract himself he started counting the various shades in her hair, counting up to seventeen before she responded.
“I don’t know.” She sighed, and that tickled even more, causing his insides to shift in a curious manner. He recognized the sensation and froze. “I guess because even if it hurts, it feels better afterward to just know.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Not yet. But I’ll get there.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Some cosmologists now think that something else -- something just as inexplicable and unobservable as dark matter -- is lurking in the universe.
In the end he was wrong.
Well, not wrong, but his calculations had been off by two weeks. He could easily explain this, however - his conversation with Penny in the laundry room had added a new variable and altered the solution to the equation.
Leonard refused to speak to Penny afterward. Sheldon theorized that this was due to several factors, such as ego and pride. Perhaps some hurt feelings, but Sheldon failed to see how terribly attached Leonard could have gotten in a mere ten weeks. Leonard did not appreciate it when Sheldon pointed this out.
Their schedule continued on, minus Penny, of course; and Sheldon found himself increasingly dissatisfied with their usual habits. Thai night was not as enjoyable, because Leonard habitually forgot some aspect of Sheldon’s order.
Penny always remembered it.
Halo night was less of a challenge, as Sheldon could easily defeat any of the others with little to no effort needed.
He had liked the thrill of a battle he had every chance of losing when he played with Penny.
Wii bowling night was still somewhat similar; but Sheldon found he missed the badly rhymed chants Penny would come up with from the couch. Usually while in his spot.
After two weeks, he found he could not take it anymore. “Leonard, I am sorry to inform you that Tuesday and Saturday nights we can no longer spend together. I need my Tuesday hamburger, and I have made space in my schedule on Saturday night so that I may reacquire my allotted amount of time to spend with Penny.”
“Oh, like she’ll want to spend alone time with you, Sheldon. She hung out with us because of me - but go ahead. Allot your time for Penny. Does this mean I can whistle in the apartment while you’re off with her?” Leonard was frowning in a disconcerted manner as he tilted his head even further back to display his annoyance with the schedule change. In other words; his words said he was fine with it, but the degree of his neck tilt seemed to say he was most definitely not okay with the change.
“No. I’ll know if you whistle.”
“You couldn’t possibly know if I whistle-”
“It disturbs the frequency at which the air resonates. No whistling Leonard. I mean it.”
“Fine.” Leonard sighed in dejection before cheering up slightly. “Today is Tuesday, does this mean you won’t be home all evening?”
“Precisely. I shall be at the Cheesecake Factory, enjoying my Tuesday hamburger.”
“Yeah. Have fun with that. Tell Penny I don’t miss her at all.”
“Why would I blatantly lie to her like that? Your change in diet and hygiene clearly indicate that you do-”
“Goodbye, Sheldon.” Leonard cut him off before he could finish his sentence, and exited the cafeteria before Sheldon could even protest.
~*~*~*~*~
- They sometimes refer to this invisible stuff as dark energy. Unlike gravity, which pulls on the universe and slows its expansion, dark energy pushes on the universe and works to speed up the expansion.
“I need that table.”
“That table seats four, sir. You could just take this table for two and-”
“Yes but that table is not in Penny’s section. I need to be in Penny’s section - she is the only employee here who places my order accurately and in a timely fashion. Also, that table is too close to the door, I will be subject to a constant draft. There are only two tables in Penny’s section that seat two people - one obstructs my view of the kitchen - I like to watch my food being prepared - and the other is in close proximity to the washrooms, and thusly subjected to airborne bacteria every time someone enters or exits the washrooms.” The hostess blinked for a moment, before shrugging.
“Whatever - it’s Tuesday. We’re never full tonight anyway.” She slapped a menu on the table before Sheldon could inform her he had no need of a menu, especially given the fact that he had yet to see any of the staff here sanitize them after use. “Penny! Customer!”
Sheldon arranged the cutlery to his liking, inspecting each utensil as he waited for Penny to arrive. “Sheldon! What are you doing here?” Penny’s smile was wide as she greeted him, walking up next to his table and leaning a hip against it.
“It’s Tuesday, Penny.”
“Yeah - but you haven’t been in for two weeks. I thought that you’d found a new hamburger.”
“Yes, well,” He sighed gustily as he looked up toward her. “I do apologize for that, but Leonard refused to come. I acquiesced to his demands for as long as I could tolerate it, but I had to put my foot down. Tuesday and Saturday nights are now scheduled for time with you, so as not to upset the group dynamic.”
“Saturdays?”
“It’s laundry night. As we often do laundry together I thought we could also spend quality time together that evening while accomplishing our laundry goals at the same time.”
“Saturdays are date nights, Sheldon.” She smiled as she spoke and he frowned in response.
“Oh. I had forgotten that. Well, how about this - should a date impede on our laundry night, you can let me know no less than three days prior and we can re-schedule accordingly or reconvene the following Saturday. I’ll add it to the contract.” Penny smiled brightly before placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it lightly.
“Okay sweetie, that sounds great. I’ve missed you, you know! I’m just gonna go let the kitchen know your order and then I’ll bring you your drink. You’re an hour later than usual, you know.” She picked up his useless menu before shooting him a small grin and walking off to the kitchen. Sheldon looked down at his eating utensils and found them in a satisfactory state of cleanliness and in good order, so he allowed his mind to focus on the equations he had been working on this afternoon in his office. When Penny reappeared at his side and placed a drink in front of him, he spoke as if she had never left.
“I am an hour later on purpose, Penny. You have ninety minutes left in your shift, so that by the time I have eaten my food and allowed a proper period of digestive rest, you will be finished and we can leave together. I will ask you about your day on the car ride home, and then if you are agreeable, we can spend the evening in a relaxing manner.”
“Nice to know my agreement was thought of anyway.”
“Oh of course it was! I thought we could play Halo this evening.” A frown crossed her face and she shifted next to him uneasily.
“Sheldon, sweetie, the Xbox is at your place, and I don’t really think that Leonard would-”
“Oh not to worry, I’ve thought of that. This morning I purchased a second system and a second Halo 3 game, and set them up in your apartment. I also hooked it up via our wifi signal - Leonard will never know. I may have also cleaned your apartment - I couldn’t help it, Penny. You had your china and cutlery sorted all wrong, in addition to the fact that you are clearly behind on the laundry and dusting schedule I wrote out for you.” He glanced up as he spoke to see Penny staring at him with an indiscernible expression on her face.
“Sweetie, you didn’t have to - I can’t accept that-”
“No, Penny, you must. I find that my Halo skills are in decline without you to challenge me. If I make our Tuesday evenings a secondary Halo night, then my skill will make marked improvements.”
She stared for one more moment before leaning down and hugging him tightly, for four seconds. One second longer than appropriate contact, but he found that he did not mind this once. “Thank you, sweetie. I’m going to go get your food now, okay?”
“Thank you Penny.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Let's imagine for a moment that the density of the universe is above the critical value required to stop expansion. As gravity within the universe pulled everything back, galaxy clusters would draw closer together.
It was their third Sheldon/Penny laundry night; Leonard was still refusing to acknowledge Penny’s existence and Sheldon continued to spend Tuesday and Saturday nights with her, as per their contract. Currently, this evening he had decided to ease her into science-fiction and they were watching the Battlestar Galactica mini-series.
“Oh, did I tell you that I had an audition this week?” Penny whispered to him while she leaned over her arm of the couch and he sighed, before pausing the DVD again.
“You cannot talk, Penny! The mini-series of this show consists of a series of important plot twists, and you must pay attention if you are to have any hope of following it!”
“Yeah, you said that last time. And the four times you paused it before that.”
“Yet you still insist on talking.”
“Because I know you’ll pause it and listen.” She smiled widely and he opened his mouth to argue before realizing that she was correct.
“Can’t you just keep a notebook next to you,; in which you can write down all the things you wish to discuss and then bring them up in an orderly fashion during laundry breaks?”
“No.” She looked at him as if he were of subpar intelligence. “Then I’d miss the plot points because I’m writing all the time.”
He sighed in defeat before turning toward the sofa. “Fine. How did your audition go?”
“Great! It was for a role on a soap opera - which I swore I’d never do that to myself, but I need something, and some big name actors started on soaps. Like Josh Duhamel!”
“Josh who?”
“The army guy from Transformers.”
“Penny, there were several army guys in that movie. Be specific.”
“The guy! With the wife and kid he’s never seen!”
“Alright, I know whom you are speaking of, please continue.”
“Sometimes, Sheldon, I swear I should get paid to talk to you. This is hard work.” She paused to glare at him for a moment, before her gaze soften and she glanced away. “Anyway, the audition went good, I think. I’ll find out next week if I got the part or not. It’d be great if I did - because it’s full-time. I could quit the Cheesecake Factory and be paid to act. That’d be fabulous.”
“What would I do for Hamburger Tuesday?” He sat up straighter in concern, and she waved him off.
“Oh sweetie, we can still go. I just won’t serve you - but don’t worry, I’ll make sure your order is right.” He sank back in relief and she smiled.
“Well then, that will be fine. Also - I don’t know why soap opera jobs are so distasteful to actors - unlike movies or dramatic or comedic television series, soap operas seemingly go on forever, with no end in sight. Therefore your pay check would be reliable. Unless your character is done away with. You must ensure that the viewing audience sympathizes greatly with your character, Penny. Writing alone does not seem to do this for most characters, so your acting must make up for the deficiency in writing.”
She was staring at him in amazement, her mouth open. “Do I even want to know how you know all of that?”
“My MeeMaw was an avid fan of The Young and the Restless as well as All My Children.”
“Of course she was.” Penny spoke softly, the corner of her mouth tilting upward. Sheldon’s watch beeped in response and he sighed before standing.
“And now it’s time to switch our laundry loads. You know, at this rate, it will take us approximately four weeks just to finish the mini-series Penny.”
She bounced up from her seat with an apologetic glance. “I won’t talk when we come back, I promise.”
“My mother has a saying about making promises you cannot uphold, Penny.”
“I’m sure she does, sweetie.”
~*~*~*~*~
- Then individual galaxies would begin to merge until, after billions of years, one mega-galaxy would form.
Leonard took close to six months to come around and finally forgive Penny. He just sat down at lunch on Halo night and looked at Sheldon. “I was thinking it’d be great if Penny could come over for Halo night. Can you ask her?”
“Yes.” He responded shortly as he turned this turn of events over in his mind. “Leonard, you aren’t going to try to date her again, are you?” He looked as horrified by the thought as he felt.
“No!” Leonard’s voice burst forth into the tense silence. “God, no. Penny and I - I mean, I knew before we broke up that we would. It never felt right, but I didn’t want to have been wrong all that time. I wanted to be right.” Leonard shrugged uneasily and Sheldon nodded in agreement.
“Well I can see why you’d want that.”
“Anyway, I’ve been a bit ridiculous about the whole thing-”
“A bit?!” Sheldon questioned him in shock.
“Okay, a lot. But it’s so hard to apologize once it’s been so long, and then you just... don’t, because it’s easier.”
“Well, you are an avoider.” Sheldon acknowledged, before continuing to eat his meal.
“Exactly! I totally am. So I was hoping you could ask her over tonight? Since she inexplicably still hangs out with you twice a week and all.” Leonard was moving his food around his plate as he spoke, but not actually eating any of it.
“Well yes, I can ask her. I cannot promise she will come, however. It will be her choice.” Sheldon stood and picked up his now empty tray. “I’m finished my meal. I will see you after work, Leonard. I will knock on Penny’s door this afternoon and issue the invitation.”
---
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
Knock, knock, knock. “Penny.”
“Hey, sweetie, what can I do for you?” Penny’s smile was large as she greeted him at the door. “You do know it’s Monday, right?”
“Yes, I was aware of that. Leonard has asked that I invite you over for Halo night, if you would like.” He folded his hands as he awaited her response.
“Are you serious? Yes! I would love to go to Halo night.” She began stepping out immediately, pulling the door shut behind her. She froze right in front of Sheldon, looking up at him warily. “Wait a minute. He doesn’t want to - he just wants to be friends, right?”
“Leonard has said that he harbours no romantic tendencies toward you. I asked.”
Penny looked up at him with a glowing smile. “You asked? How come? I mean, why?” She corrected herself with a shake of her head before tilting back on her heels and folding her arms and giving him the very serious look. He had to plan his words very carefully when she gave him the very serious look.
“My reasons were two-fold. First, I did not want to lure you over to our apartment, only to be subjected to Leonard flirting with you and making you uncomfortable. And frankly, me too. Second, this would result in pain and rejection for Leonard, and I did not want to see him hurt.” He was matter-of-fact about it, as he kept his hands clasped and watched her as he spoke, looking for any sign that he had answered incorrectly.
“Why would Leonard flirting with me make you uncomfortable?”
Sheldon blinked at her blankly for a moment. He had not thought about that. “I had not thought about that. Just that it would make me uncomfortable.” Penny stepped closer to him, until her body was almost brushing his. He could feel her hair tickling his arms as it fell from where she tilted her head.
“Maybe you should think about why. Maybe it’s important.” She whispered the words before stepping away and moving across the hall before opening the door with a thud and a loudly exclaimed “Well, I’m glad we finally got all that crap over with. Fighting is way too stressful.”
~*~*~*~*~
- At the end, nothing would remain but a super-hot, super-dense singularity -- the seed of another universe. Many astronomers think the seed would germinate in a "big bounce," starting the whole process over again.
He thought about it for seventeen hours and thirty-six minutes.
Until Leonard assumed that he was now automatically re-invited to Hamburger Tuesday. He was not, and Sheldon said so. Leonard had been shocked silent as Sheldon had explained that he and Penny had a separate contract, outside of the group contract. Tuesday’s were Hamburgers with Penny Night now, and he would not alter his new schedule, as he found it was far superior to his previous one.
Halfway through his rant, Sheldon realized why he did not want Leonard to flirt with Penny. He did not want them together again, because it would take Penny away from him. He liked his Tuesdays and Saturdays. They were his favourite days of the week; he looked forward to them immensely. He liked them immensely because he liked her immensely.
This realization hit Leonard and Sheldon at the same time.
“You like her, don’t you?” Leonard’s voice was high and strangled. Sheldon felt as though his own vocal chords must be reacting to something in the room, because he could not even speak, he could only nod and cringe.
“Sheldon. You like Penny. Like a girl! I never thought you’d ever-”Leonard’s words cut out and he stared at Sheldon with an open face. “You should go for it, Sheldon.”
Sheldon had theorized many reactions for Leonard in the .237 milliseconds between his nod and Leonard’s response, but none of them had included this. He simply stared at Leonard incredulously.
“I’m serious. We weren’t right together, but you like her Sheldon. This is the first, maybe only girl I’ve seen you feel anything for. If you don’t find out, you’ll regret never knowing. Tell her.”
Sheldon thought about it. Right before he looked Leonard in the eye, nodded and exited their apartment.
He didn’t knock on Penny’s door. He used the emergency key to let himself in while she stood in the doorway of her bedroom and watched him with shocked eyes.
“You didn’t knock.” She spoke in a disbelieving tone and he nodded in shocked agreement.
His heart beat against his ribcage painfully, in a triple beat. “Penny.” He started and stopped, his heart beating painfully three more times. “Penny-” Thud, thud, thud, he gathered his courage to walk over to where she stood. “Penny. Did you know that I knew you and Leonard would fail because you were like a closed universe? The universe, Penny, can be closed, open, or flat. If it’s closed, it will expand to a certain point before collapsing in on itself and contracting until it consumes itself. If it’s open, it will expand infinitely, never ending. And if it’s flat it will expand until all the energy is expended and the temperature drops and kills every living thing in it.”
Penny was frowning in confusion as she placed her hands on his arms bracingly. “Sweetie, what are you talking about?”
“You and Leonard were a closed universe. You collapsed and contracted. Some cosmologists think that after the contraction, or the big crunch, if you will, the contracted universe will react and implode again. A new big bang, a new universe.”
“I am not following you at all, Sheldon. What are you talking about?”
“I want to be the new universe. Penny, I didn’t want Leonard to flirt with you, because I didn’t want you to get back together, because I didn’t want to share you. I like you Penny.” He stopped speaking with a gasp, looking down at her with a horrified expression. His heart beat in the silence. One. Two. Three.
Her hands tightened on his forearms as she yanked him forward with a grin. The air felt charged and time was relative as she pulled him forward until her mouth met his.
Bang.