The Paladin Protocol (23/?)
a/n - In some realities, if you clap your hands, you bring fairies back to life. In others, you post pretty pictures of JP, and you get random madness from me. Go figure. :)
Title: The Paladin Protocol
Author: SpaceAnJL
Summary: In which things finally happen.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episodes to date
Pt. 1 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/830557.html
Pt. 2 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/838672.html
Pt. 3 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/843029.html
Pt. 4 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/851973.html
Pt. 5 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/873952.html
Pt. 6 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/893411.html
Pt. 7 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/895530.html
Pt. 8 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/913902.html
Pt. 9 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/922075.html
Pt. 10 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/927279.html
Pt. 11 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/942054.html
Pt. 12 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/957365.html
Pt. 13 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/968076.html
Pt. 14 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/978817.html
Pt. 15 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/985364.html
Pt. 16 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/986898.html
Pt. 17 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/995637.html
Pt. 18 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1006005.html
Pt. 19 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1011093.html
Pt. 20 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1015766.html
Pt. 21 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1020708.html
Pt. 22 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1025505.html
The apartment has a quiet, wounded feel the next morning. The elephant in the room has died, and now they have to deal with the remains. Though - seven years of habit is not so lightly broken - the coffee pot is on, when Leonard walks into the kitchen. Something in that little gesture hurts.
He wonders whether to call in sick.
Going in to work, facing stares and snickers...that sudden vertiginous tip of perspective again. Is this what it was like? He can no longer dismiss that trip to Texas as childish pique. Sullen defeat in him still, and that little war of shame and anger. He's glad that Sheldon does not come out of his room. Things are still too raw.
How will this work? Will he have to find somewhere else to live? Should he? The sheer thought of what his mother would say if he turned up on her doorstep with this tale...curdles the coffee in his stomach, and he can't face breakfast.
00000000000000000
Sheldon catches sight of his eyes in the mirror whilst shaving. Odd little double-take, as he is surprised by his own reflection.
He knows his own thoughts, wonders how you read them in a face. High, smooth forehead, strong arch of his eyebrows over large eyes. Under the lather, his jaw is taut, mouth drawn, but he no longer feels the intense pressure that has been welling behind his sinuses, welding his teeth together and cramping his jaw muscles. The very release of it has left him with a headache.
What happens now? He has discarded old patterns, old behaviours. Stills his hands. Now is not the time to face the abyss. The mental discipline of years locks down the incipient panic, and he continues to shave. This is real, this is now. He is Sheldon Cooper, he has his mind, and his body will obey him.
...he could use an electric shaver, but his Daddy had taught him with a blade. He has his father's hands. Incongruous on the man, those knuckles scarred, but the same long fingers around the battered Zippo lighter, obscuring the words that Momma told him he wasn't ever to repeat again. (Still doesn't know which one upset her most, the cussing or the politics.) Another slight shock in him - by the time his father was his age, he had fought in a war, and was married with three small children...
But he is not his father. He was chosen for, has chosen, a different arena, different battles.
Looks again at the face in the mirror. The dark blue eyes are steady, just a hint of the fear behind them.
He is a scientist, not a soldier. His world is intellectual, systemic study of the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world through observation and experiment. It is the practical element that so often confounds him. But he is beginning to feel connected to the study, to the world, in a way he has not before.
He will face his fear, know it, and overcome it.
And so there is a very conscious decision in him to wear his favourite 'Green Lantern' tee.
000000000000000000
Penny moves through her day with a slightly spaced feel. She keeps waiting for the misery, the little voice that says 'on your own, alone, alone'.
It doesn't come.
She'd opened her eyes to a full memory of the night before. There is a little ball of anger and sadness in her. But she doesn't want to cry. Has no problem getting out of bed, getting ready for work. Something almost light-hearted in the feel of the sun on her skin, music on the radio.
It's like...when you've been sick, and then the day you first start feeling better. Tired, and weak, but getting stronger.
Wonders how things will be, now. How Sheldon will cope without his routines, how they will all cope with this change. The cosy little existence has shattered, the bubble burst.
She's on her break, and snorting at her phone, (Raquel, on hearing the news, has just texted her the iconic picture of Nicole Kidman waving her heels) when there is a tap at the break-room door. Bernadette, wondering whether to offer a cautious sympathy. Seemingly reassured that Penny was not going to break down, she has her own view.
“I told Howard he should go and apologise.”
00000000000000000000
Sheldon is quite surprised to find Wolowitz at his door. The engineer has never sought him out before. His acquaintance with the man is through Leonard - his new room-mate had allowed these random people to sit at the table in the cafeteria, and somehow they had never gone away again. They have some interests in common, but...somehow, they don't have an ease together.
The slight scowl as he considers this is nearly misinterpreted. Howard is within an ace of bolting off down the corridor again. What stops him is the memory of Bernadette's tiny confused frown, her high little voice, “But why would you do that?” The disappointment in her eyes.
Why? Because - Leonard suggested it. To keep Sheldon quiet, to stop Howard lashing out at him? Looking at the man behind the desk in front of him, Howard realises that he wouldn't provoke this Sheldon. He seems more solid, more present, than he has before.
He hadn't wanted to go, really. Had known that the tall, geeky genius was going to wear his patience thin within days. But whither Raj goest, he goest. Because they are friends.
He's never been sure if he likes Sheldon. He sure as hell doesn't make it easy for anyone. Rules and strikes and everything his way. Howard has to admit that he envies that. The sheer strength of will when Sheldon bends the world around himself. Oh, Leonard can make him do things, but not in a straightforward contest of wills.
Yeah, he's an arrogant WASP who had two PhD's under his belt before Howard finished his Masters degree. It's intimidating enough, even if he wasn't nearly a foot taller. And the fact that he can just pick up women without actually noticing, let alone care about it...salt in the wounds.
...He's outside, always. He's not a physicist, not a doctor. And there is that dark underbelly of fear, that one day they'll turn round, replace him, leave him behind. (Leonard had taken Stephanie) Those few weeks, when Raj started working with Sheldon, and he was left adrift, had been terrifying. To have his friend taken away like that (for his friend to walk away like that) had left a deep-seated twitchiness.
And now, there is Bernadette. (Leonard can't have her) And this is something new and fragile and just as scary. He doesn't have to try so hard, not the same way.
This is far more difficult.
“Hey, Sheldon, how you doing?”
“I presume that the attempt at small talk will be leading up to some kind of conversational gambit designed to ascertain the true nature of yesterday evening's proceedings?”
And there is the fact that the goddam genius is always three steps ahead when he actually bothers to take notice...
“You know everyone's gonna talk...” Holds up his hands, swallows, “but that's not it...though if you want to spill, I'm all ears...”
“No. I'm sure that Leonard will provide you with his own version of events.”
He really doesn't make this easy.
“Look, I just...sorry.”
The blue eyes are cool, assessing.
“Whatever the motivation behind that...am I supposed to thank you?”
“Dammit, Sheldon, you were a giant, controlling pain in the ass, and you were driving us all nuts, stuck in that little hut with you!”
Sheldon lifts his chin.
“At least you have never made any secret of your resentment. I understand why you did it. I still don't understand why he did.”
“Really? Because I can think of one outstanding reason who went home with you last night.”
Sheldon's face actually freezes. Howard sees the muscles locking into place.
“Even then?” The words are soft, reflective. Rather more terrifying than shouting. The eyes snap up. “He betrayed me and he betrayed science, and you helped him.”
“Yeah, well, love makes guys do dumb things...”
“He didn't love her, Howard, he merely wanted to establish and maintain a sexual relationship to boost his ego.” The words and the tone might be cool and clinical, the expression isn't. “And there is no excuse for what he did.”
“....no.” Howard has to admit it. Attack as the best form of defence. “Are you saying that you wouldn't do anything for her?”
Sheldon simply looks at him.
“I have never betrayed my ideals.” He says quietly. “And she would never want me to.”
Howard drops his eyes, flinches.
“Maybe...I'll see you at lunch, huh?”
“Maybe.” Sheldon's expression cracks faintly, uncertainty, hardens again. “Please shut the door on your way out.”
On reflection, Howard thinks, he'd almost rather Sheldon had hit him.
00000000000000000000
As it is, Sheldon does not join them for lunch. He ends up in a lunch meeting with Professor Poligny and Gablehauser, rearranging a schedule which requires him to co-opt Raj into the discussion. Poligny is inclined to be a little cool to begin with, but Sheldon is scrupulously fair in his assessment of the work they have been doing, and Raj is both confident and competent in the absence of anything female.
So Howard and Leonard end up at a table together, and find that they have no conversation which isn't like a mouthful of glass and ashes.
Howard takes a nervy kind of comfort from the fact that Bernadette had been even more shocked and disappointed by Leonard than she was by him. There is that, at least.
00000000000000000000
Her hair is pinned up anyhow, she's not wearing any make-up, she's in her comfy pj's. It's not like she's given up drinking or anything, she just doesn't feel like it right now. It's her life, dammit, and if she wants to stay in on her couch and watch old cowboy movies, that's her business.
Because she knows that she could dress up, go out, pick up a hot guy in a bar for a random night of fun and forgetting. Something in her aches for it - make the problems go away, curl up in warm arms, drinking and loud music and good sex.
But. Drinking will only leave her with a headache, sex will only leave a body in her bed.
And. It won't be him.
She doesn't need a guy. She wants a man. A tall dark-haired man with blue eyes and a soft drawl.
….God, she only broke up with her boyfriend yesterday, and she's already eyeing up another man. What sort of a slut is she?
….No, she's not a slut. She's the woman who has been falling slowly for this man for a couple of months, but not admitting it. And now she has, and she has to deal.
And suddenly, oddly, her grandfather's voice in her head - “When you've got an eight-point buck in your sights, kleine Blüte, you don't want to go spooking him...”
Sometimes, hunting is more subtle.
So she's going to be strong. And sit here and watch Jimmy Stewart and think dirty thoughts.
The knocking on the door startles her. She finds that she's waiting for the third knock, but it's Raquel's voice.
“Open the door before the ice-cream melts...”
She does.
“Intervention.” Raquel holds up a bag. “We bring the traditional accoutrements for a dish session.”
“Ice-cream and bourbon.” Beth shoulders in behind her.
It turns out to be the weirdest post-breakup dish session she's ever had, really. Because the guy she should be moaning about...he just doesn't figure. Once you get past “all he wanted was sex, and I was an idiot not to see it for so long”, then you've said pretty much all there is to say.
“...Sorry to be blunt, but...I don't know the guy. I mean, it's all very sad that his mother didn't love him, and yeah, she sounds like a scary hellbitch, but you don't have to pick up the slack there.”
“Run for the frickin' hills.” Raquel says. “Mommy issues are a no-no.”
Penny can feel her world making sense again.
“I feel like such an idiot...”
“You, and how many other women, sweetheart? We all snog a few frogs before we get the prince.”
“Yeah, best just drop the slimy little sucker back in his pond.”
“He's not...” No, she doesn't have to defend him any more. He isn't her problem. She can feel sorry for him, his messed-up childhood, his anxiety, his neediness. But she doesn't have to carry it around for him. Sets the weight down.
(Goodbye, Pilgrim...)
It isn't heartless or cruel. She can't change it, or make it better for him. It isn't her job, her responsibility.
“I just thought a smart guy might treat me better...”
“A smart guy is treating you better.” Raquel slurps her spoon. “It's just not the smart guy you thought it was.”
The little triple knock, her name, and she can feel her cheeks heating.
He's standing there, grocery bag clutched to his chest.
“I understand that it is customary in a time of crisis for friends to offer emotional support....”
“It's not a good time, Sheldon.”
“I understand.” His face shutting itself up, and that hurts her, more than anything from the last day.
Oh, yeah, she's in deep here.
“It's just...Raquel and Beth already came over. It's a girl thing.”
“Oh.” He nods, face clearing. “Missy would do the same. There was usually crying, or a lot of high-pitched giggling.”
“I don't think there's gonna be any crying.”
“Good. I...find it uncomfortable when you cry.” Holds out the bag. “But you should have the ice-cream anyway.”
She takes it, and her fingers brush his. Nearly drops the bag.
Sheldon is mesmerized by the smear of ice-cream by her lips.
“You have ice-cream...” He wipes it away gently with his thumb.
She nearly dies, right there.
Sheldon can't quite believe what he just did either. Makes a small strangled squeak, and dives for his own door.
Penny actually has to catch her breath, before she dares go back in and confront the badly-concealed grins. Beth cracks first.
“So...you and Sheldon...?”
“No...yes...sort of...I don't know...” Flops onto the end of her couch and covers her face with her hands. “He's skinny and weird and crazy, and he dresses like a child, and he still collects frickin' comics, and he can't drive worth spit, and he carries his own damn fork around with him to eat places. He's got so many rules for dealing with absolutely everything, and there are days when I could just strangle him...”
“Oh, you've got it baaaad.” Beth cackles.
“I know.” Penny groans, and they all laugh. Raquel looks up from poking in the bag.
“Girlfriend,” She grins. “He's smart, sweet, geeky-sexy and understands the importance of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice-cream.”
“Chocolate...” Penny bounces up. “Crap, that's cheating.”
“Nah.” Beth wields her spoon cheerfully. “That's a keeper.”
00000000000000000000
Behind his own front door, his heart hammering in his chest, Sheldon takes a deep breath.
Quickly, guiltily, licks his thumb.
Title: The Paladin Protocol
Author: SpaceAnJL
Summary: In which things finally happen.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Episodes to date
Pt. 1 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/830557.html
Pt. 2 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/838672.html
Pt. 3 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/843029.html
Pt. 4 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/851973.html
Pt. 5 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/873952.html
Pt. 6 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/893411.html
Pt. 7 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/895530.html
Pt. 8 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/913902.html
Pt. 9 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/922075.html
Pt. 10 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/927279.html
Pt. 11 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/942054.html
Pt. 12 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/957365.html
Pt. 13 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/968076.html
Pt. 14 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/978817.html
Pt. 15 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/985364.html
Pt. 16 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/986898.html
Pt. 17 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/995637.html
Pt. 18 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1006005.html
Pt. 19 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1011093.html
Pt. 20 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1015766.html
Pt. 21 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1020708.html
Pt. 22 http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/1025505.html
The apartment has a quiet, wounded feel the next morning. The elephant in the room has died, and now they have to deal with the remains. Though - seven years of habit is not so lightly broken - the coffee pot is on, when Leonard walks into the kitchen. Something in that little gesture hurts.
He wonders whether to call in sick.
Going in to work, facing stares and snickers...that sudden vertiginous tip of perspective again. Is this what it was like? He can no longer dismiss that trip to Texas as childish pique. Sullen defeat in him still, and that little war of shame and anger. He's glad that Sheldon does not come out of his room. Things are still too raw.
How will this work? Will he have to find somewhere else to live? Should he? The sheer thought of what his mother would say if he turned up on her doorstep with this tale...curdles the coffee in his stomach, and he can't face breakfast.
00000000000000000
Sheldon catches sight of his eyes in the mirror whilst shaving. Odd little double-take, as he is surprised by his own reflection.
He knows his own thoughts, wonders how you read them in a face. High, smooth forehead, strong arch of his eyebrows over large eyes. Under the lather, his jaw is taut, mouth drawn, but he no longer feels the intense pressure that has been welling behind his sinuses, welding his teeth together and cramping his jaw muscles. The very release of it has left him with a headache.
What happens now? He has discarded old patterns, old behaviours. Stills his hands. Now is not the time to face the abyss. The mental discipline of years locks down the incipient panic, and he continues to shave. This is real, this is now. He is Sheldon Cooper, he has his mind, and his body will obey him.
...he could use an electric shaver, but his Daddy had taught him with a blade. He has his father's hands. Incongruous on the man, those knuckles scarred, but the same long fingers around the battered Zippo lighter, obscuring the words that Momma told him he wasn't ever to repeat again. (Still doesn't know which one upset her most, the cussing or the politics.) Another slight shock in him - by the time his father was his age, he had fought in a war, and was married with three small children...
But he is not his father. He was chosen for, has chosen, a different arena, different battles.
Looks again at the face in the mirror. The dark blue eyes are steady, just a hint of the fear behind them.
He is a scientist, not a soldier. His world is intellectual, systemic study of the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world through observation and experiment. It is the practical element that so often confounds him. But he is beginning to feel connected to the study, to the world, in a way he has not before.
He will face his fear, know it, and overcome it.
And so there is a very conscious decision in him to wear his favourite 'Green Lantern' tee.
000000000000000000
Penny moves through her day with a slightly spaced feel. She keeps waiting for the misery, the little voice that says 'on your own, alone, alone'.
It doesn't come.
She'd opened her eyes to a full memory of the night before. There is a little ball of anger and sadness in her. But she doesn't want to cry. Has no problem getting out of bed, getting ready for work. Something almost light-hearted in the feel of the sun on her skin, music on the radio.
It's like...when you've been sick, and then the day you first start feeling better. Tired, and weak, but getting stronger.
Wonders how things will be, now. How Sheldon will cope without his routines, how they will all cope with this change. The cosy little existence has shattered, the bubble burst.
She's on her break, and snorting at her phone, (Raquel, on hearing the news, has just texted her the iconic picture of Nicole Kidman waving her heels) when there is a tap at the break-room door. Bernadette, wondering whether to offer a cautious sympathy. Seemingly reassured that Penny was not going to break down, she has her own view.
“I told Howard he should go and apologise.”
00000000000000000000
Sheldon is quite surprised to find Wolowitz at his door. The engineer has never sought him out before. His acquaintance with the man is through Leonard - his new room-mate had allowed these random people to sit at the table in the cafeteria, and somehow they had never gone away again. They have some interests in common, but...somehow, they don't have an ease together.
The slight scowl as he considers this is nearly misinterpreted. Howard is within an ace of bolting off down the corridor again. What stops him is the memory of Bernadette's tiny confused frown, her high little voice, “But why would you do that?” The disappointment in her eyes.
Why? Because - Leonard suggested it. To keep Sheldon quiet, to stop Howard lashing out at him? Looking at the man behind the desk in front of him, Howard realises that he wouldn't provoke this Sheldon. He seems more solid, more present, than he has before.
He hadn't wanted to go, really. Had known that the tall, geeky genius was going to wear his patience thin within days. But whither Raj goest, he goest. Because they are friends.
He's never been sure if he likes Sheldon. He sure as hell doesn't make it easy for anyone. Rules and strikes and everything his way. Howard has to admit that he envies that. The sheer strength of will when Sheldon bends the world around himself. Oh, Leonard can make him do things, but not in a straightforward contest of wills.
Yeah, he's an arrogant WASP who had two PhD's under his belt before Howard finished his Masters degree. It's intimidating enough, even if he wasn't nearly a foot taller. And the fact that he can just pick up women without actually noticing, let alone care about it...salt in the wounds.
...He's outside, always. He's not a physicist, not a doctor. And there is that dark underbelly of fear, that one day they'll turn round, replace him, leave him behind. (Leonard had taken Stephanie) Those few weeks, when Raj started working with Sheldon, and he was left adrift, had been terrifying. To have his friend taken away like that (for his friend to walk away like that) had left a deep-seated twitchiness.
And now, there is Bernadette. (Leonard can't have her) And this is something new and fragile and just as scary. He doesn't have to try so hard, not the same way.
This is far more difficult.
“Hey, Sheldon, how you doing?”
“I presume that the attempt at small talk will be leading up to some kind of conversational gambit designed to ascertain the true nature of yesterday evening's proceedings?”
And there is the fact that the goddam genius is always three steps ahead when he actually bothers to take notice...
“You know everyone's gonna talk...” Holds up his hands, swallows, “but that's not it...though if you want to spill, I'm all ears...”
“No. I'm sure that Leonard will provide you with his own version of events.”
He really doesn't make this easy.
“Look, I just...sorry.”
The blue eyes are cool, assessing.
“Whatever the motivation behind that...am I supposed to thank you?”
“Dammit, Sheldon, you were a giant, controlling pain in the ass, and you were driving us all nuts, stuck in that little hut with you!”
Sheldon lifts his chin.
“At least you have never made any secret of your resentment. I understand why you did it. I still don't understand why he did.”
“Really? Because I can think of one outstanding reason who went home with you last night.”
Sheldon's face actually freezes. Howard sees the muscles locking into place.
“Even then?” The words are soft, reflective. Rather more terrifying than shouting. The eyes snap up. “He betrayed me and he betrayed science, and you helped him.”
“Yeah, well, love makes guys do dumb things...”
“He didn't love her, Howard, he merely wanted to establish and maintain a sexual relationship to boost his ego.” The words and the tone might be cool and clinical, the expression isn't. “And there is no excuse for what he did.”
“....no.” Howard has to admit it. Attack as the best form of defence. “Are you saying that you wouldn't do anything for her?”
Sheldon simply looks at him.
“I have never betrayed my ideals.” He says quietly. “And she would never want me to.”
Howard drops his eyes, flinches.
“Maybe...I'll see you at lunch, huh?”
“Maybe.” Sheldon's expression cracks faintly, uncertainty, hardens again. “Please shut the door on your way out.”
On reflection, Howard thinks, he'd almost rather Sheldon had hit him.
00000000000000000000
As it is, Sheldon does not join them for lunch. He ends up in a lunch meeting with Professor Poligny and Gablehauser, rearranging a schedule which requires him to co-opt Raj into the discussion. Poligny is inclined to be a little cool to begin with, but Sheldon is scrupulously fair in his assessment of the work they have been doing, and Raj is both confident and competent in the absence of anything female.
So Howard and Leonard end up at a table together, and find that they have no conversation which isn't like a mouthful of glass and ashes.
Howard takes a nervy kind of comfort from the fact that Bernadette had been even more shocked and disappointed by Leonard than she was by him. There is that, at least.
00000000000000000000
Her hair is pinned up anyhow, she's not wearing any make-up, she's in her comfy pj's. It's not like she's given up drinking or anything, she just doesn't feel like it right now. It's her life, dammit, and if she wants to stay in on her couch and watch old cowboy movies, that's her business.
Because she knows that she could dress up, go out, pick up a hot guy in a bar for a random night of fun and forgetting. Something in her aches for it - make the problems go away, curl up in warm arms, drinking and loud music and good sex.
But. Drinking will only leave her with a headache, sex will only leave a body in her bed.
And. It won't be him.
She doesn't need a guy. She wants a man. A tall dark-haired man with blue eyes and a soft drawl.
….God, she only broke up with her boyfriend yesterday, and she's already eyeing up another man. What sort of a slut is she?
….No, she's not a slut. She's the woman who has been falling slowly for this man for a couple of months, but not admitting it. And now she has, and she has to deal.
And suddenly, oddly, her grandfather's voice in her head - “When you've got an eight-point buck in your sights, kleine Blüte, you don't want to go spooking him...”
Sometimes, hunting is more subtle.
So she's going to be strong. And sit here and watch Jimmy Stewart and think dirty thoughts.
The knocking on the door startles her. She finds that she's waiting for the third knock, but it's Raquel's voice.
“Open the door before the ice-cream melts...”
She does.
“Intervention.” Raquel holds up a bag. “We bring the traditional accoutrements for a dish session.”
“Ice-cream and bourbon.” Beth shoulders in behind her.
It turns out to be the weirdest post-breakup dish session she's ever had, really. Because the guy she should be moaning about...he just doesn't figure. Once you get past “all he wanted was sex, and I was an idiot not to see it for so long”, then you've said pretty much all there is to say.
“...Sorry to be blunt, but...I don't know the guy. I mean, it's all very sad that his mother didn't love him, and yeah, she sounds like a scary hellbitch, but you don't have to pick up the slack there.”
“Run for the frickin' hills.” Raquel says. “Mommy issues are a no-no.”
Penny can feel her world making sense again.
“I feel like such an idiot...”
“You, and how many other women, sweetheart? We all snog a few frogs before we get the prince.”
“Yeah, best just drop the slimy little sucker back in his pond.”
“He's not...” No, she doesn't have to defend him any more. He isn't her problem. She can feel sorry for him, his messed-up childhood, his anxiety, his neediness. But she doesn't have to carry it around for him. Sets the weight down.
(Goodbye, Pilgrim...)
It isn't heartless or cruel. She can't change it, or make it better for him. It isn't her job, her responsibility.
“I just thought a smart guy might treat me better...”
“A smart guy is treating you better.” Raquel slurps her spoon. “It's just not the smart guy you thought it was.”
The little triple knock, her name, and she can feel her cheeks heating.
He's standing there, grocery bag clutched to his chest.
“I understand that it is customary in a time of crisis for friends to offer emotional support....”
“It's not a good time, Sheldon.”
“I understand.” His face shutting itself up, and that hurts her, more than anything from the last day.
Oh, yeah, she's in deep here.
“It's just...Raquel and Beth already came over. It's a girl thing.”
“Oh.” He nods, face clearing. “Missy would do the same. There was usually crying, or a lot of high-pitched giggling.”
“I don't think there's gonna be any crying.”
“Good. I...find it uncomfortable when you cry.” Holds out the bag. “But you should have the ice-cream anyway.”
She takes it, and her fingers brush his. Nearly drops the bag.
Sheldon is mesmerized by the smear of ice-cream by her lips.
“You have ice-cream...” He wipes it away gently with his thumb.
She nearly dies, right there.
Sheldon can't quite believe what he just did either. Makes a small strangled squeak, and dives for his own door.
Penny actually has to catch her breath, before she dares go back in and confront the badly-concealed grins. Beth cracks first.
“So...you and Sheldon...?”
“No...yes...sort of...I don't know...” Flops onto the end of her couch and covers her face with her hands. “He's skinny and weird and crazy, and he dresses like a child, and he still collects frickin' comics, and he can't drive worth spit, and he carries his own damn fork around with him to eat places. He's got so many rules for dealing with absolutely everything, and there are days when I could just strangle him...”
“Oh, you've got it baaaad.” Beth cackles.
“I know.” Penny groans, and they all laugh. Raquel looks up from poking in the bag.
“Girlfriend,” She grins. “He's smart, sweet, geeky-sexy and understands the importance of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice-cream.”
“Chocolate...” Penny bounces up. “Crap, that's cheating.”
“Nah.” Beth wields her spoon cheerfully. “That's a keeper.”
00000000000000000000
Behind his own front door, his heart hammering in his chest, Sheldon takes a deep breath.
Quickly, guiltily, licks his thumb.