the temporary cohabitation resultant {tbbt - sheldon, penny}
Title: The Temporary Cohabitation Resultant
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Sheldon, Penny. Ship most definitely implied; background Leonard/Penny.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8,641.
Summary: Post ep for 'The Large Hadron Collision'. The five days that changed the world -- or at least Penny's perception of it.
It’s the freaking day that will never end.
Which of course turns into the very long series of days that absolutely will never freaking end.
“Sheldon, you know,” she pauses, not for effect but instead to blow her nose, “this would be a lot more pleasant right now if we could have some quiet time.”
“Okay, Penny,” he pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders, “please close and lock the door on your way out.”
She would laugh if she wasn’t worried that she’d end up inadvertently either coughing or choking. It’s just nasty all around. “Yeah, right, Moonpie.”
Really though, she would gladly be out that door right now - this being hour six of day one of the never ending sick day/week/whatever, starring Penny and Sheldon - except for the fact that she’s curled up in one of his blankets as well as one of her own and he’s not out of tea or tissues (she is out of both) and they’re kind of…enabling one another. She would leave except then she would be sick and alone, on Valentine’s Day, and she’d rather be here with him.
It sounds romantic but, as anyone with eyes who can fully take in the overuse of plaid and baggy pajamas can see, it’s pretty much the unsexiest situation in the world.
“Penny?”
She doesn’t turn her head to look at him so much as let her head loll to the side on which he’s sitting. “What?”
“No one calls me Moonpie.”
A pillow flies in his direction and she settles against the arm of the couch, dislodging his remote with her feet and making absolutely no apologies for it.
---
After she stopped puking and he stopped puking and it was just the two of them left with runny noses and coughs that made them sound like they were dying - unbeknownst to one another - Leonard told her that he was going to call Raj and see if he wanted to go.
“What about Sheldon?”
By now, she was in the pajamas from hell, the ones she reserved for sick days where people didn’t have to see her. Currently, she was breaking that rule and so far past the point of caring that it was ridiculous. Leonard took in this drastic departure from her normal camisole-and-shorts sleepwear of choice with careful disappointment, at least that’s what she figured from the half-second glance she spared in his direction before going into the closet for more blankets. “He’s kind of sick too.”
Sniffle. “With what?”
“Well, he was throwing up and now he’s…” he’s twisting his hands in that fidgety way that usually seems endearing but is now driving her batshit crazy, “you know how he is when he’s sick.”
“He probably has what I have,” she decides, with some amount of annoyance, just for the simple fact that when Sheldon’s sick he likes to be taken care of, usually by her, and that is so very much not going to happen this time around. “I’m surprised you don’t.”
“Yeah, why is that?”
She turns to look at him. “I don’t know. You’re the genius. Maybe you have some amazing immune system or something.”
He tilts his head to the side, in a think-y way. “Hmm. Maybe between the lactose intolerance, the sleep apnea, and being allergic to everything known to man someone cut me a break.”
“Isn’t that nice for you,” she replies, wrapping herself up in a blanket and heading back towards her room. She flops back down on the bed a little too forcefully.
“Are you sure you aren’t going to be better in time to leave?”
“Leonard,” she’s about to come up with some half-witty retort, except the jostling from a moment ago stirs up something inside of her that makes her stomach lurch.
Her run to the bathroom again pretty much answers that question.
---
Her cell phone wakes her up.
It’s eleven by then and Leonard’s gone and her kitchen is really pretty far from adequately stocked. Specifically, she’s out of tea and the dry toast she tries to force down kind of makes her gag.
By eleven fifteen she’s grabbed her blanket and the one remaining box of tissues in her apartment and headed over to 4A. She doesn’t knock before she enters and Sheldon regards her, quiet and red-nosed, from the couch. His eyes follow her as she closes the door and walks across their living room but not for the reasons that Leonard’s were.
“What?” She asks, narrowing her eyes as she drops her blanket on the far side of the couch, along with the tissues, and rooting through their cabinets, looking for the tea.
“Please, help yourself,” he remarks, turning his attention back to his television program. Penny marvels at his ability to be snippy even while most likely running a fever and definitely suffering from the flu. But this is Sheldon. And then she finds the tea and cares a little less about that.
“Do you want some?” She figures she should ask first, since technically she’s taking advantage of resources that aren’t strictly hers. There is nothing but water in front of him - room temperature, since supposedly that was better for you - and Penny’s ninety percent sure that if she stays here any longer than the time it’s going to take to finish her tea, which let’s face it she will, then she’s basically committing herself to handling lunch for the both of them.
“Yes, thank you, although I feel the need to remind you that I like - “
In no mood to let him get his lecture out, she interjects a very firm, “I know, Sheldon.”
Content to have him sit there on the couch and twitch for the next two minutes until he figures out that she’s just going to ignore him, she goes about brewing said tea. The television is playing a mid-day Battlestar Galactica marathon, on low, and she unfortunately knows enough about this particular television schedule to realize that it will abruptly switch from Battlestar to Caprica and Sheldon will switch channels and make some comment, behavior that can basically be boiled down to ‘Sheldon is change resistant’.
The tea kettle sets on the stove and she makes herself a little home out of the blanket she brought and still Sheldon does not say a word, head leaned slightly back, eyes only sometimes finding the television, and she asks, “Are you okay?”
“Leonard went to Switzerland with Raj, Penny,” Sheldon says, sounding more needy than usual but not yet rocking the hoarse, sore throat thing that she seems to have acquired. Isn’t she lucky.
“Yeah, I know. He told me before he left.”
Presumably finding his point, he continues. “That should’ve been me.”
“Get in line,” she croaks and waits for the retort that she knows is coming.
---
Sheldon is on some self-made schedule of ‘take two of these every four hours’ and ‘one capful of this every six hours’. There is literally a schedule, in Leonard’s handwriting nonetheless, meaning he was most likely dictated to before he was allowed to leave.
She isn’t surprised.
Problem is he miscounted the pills. Or maybe Leonard did. Someone dropped the ball because he’s got one left by three and she literally would give anything not to be the one to tell him that, just to escape the shit fit that ensues.
While it’s occurring, she realizes she popped a Dayquil when she woke up and hadn’t really bothered with medication since, which might be why she feels even more like crap than he does.
By the time she’s had to say “no, I’m not driving to the drugstore to go buy you cold medicine” and followed it up with “because I’m sick”, she’s come up with the brilliant idea to raid his and Leonard’s supply of medication, as well as her own, and make do with that.
Unsurprisingly, hers is sparse, consisting mostly of almost empty bottles and a thing of Halls cough drops. But between Sheldon, who has to be prepared for everything ever, and Leonard, who is allergic to everything not to mention has like no immune system, except apparently with this, they hit the freaking jackpot.
Every medication known to man - or at least pretty close to it - ends up scattered all over his coffee table, joined by various cups of tea and orange juice, bottles of water, and tissue boxes galore. The clutter, of course, freaks Sheldon the fuck out relatively quickly.
“Penny,” he starts, ready to chastise at any moment.
“Don’t start with me if you want to live,” she replies, quickly, swallowing a capful of something that’s labeled ‘cold and flu’ and tastes just as nasty as they all do, chasing it with the rest of her orange juice. When that’s settled, she looks up at him. “Have you found something that’ll work?”
He’s frowning down at a white and blue box in his hands but answers anyways. “I suppose this is an acceptable replacement.”
“Then take them,” she all but orders, meeting his look with a glare before bothering to ascertain the emotion behind it.
---
The lunch ordeal comes shortly after.
He counts off the reasons why he is never initiating physical contact with another human being ever again for the next ten minutes.
When he’s done, she rises, pats his cheek, leaving her hand there for a deliberately prolonged amount of time - he recoils at her touch and she would laugh if she felt better - and then makes a run for the bathroom to throw up.
Again.
---
Somewhere after Sheldon reiterates that Moonpie is reserved for MeeMaw only, Penny passes out on her side of the couch. She blames this on the cold medicine. Sheldon must follow suit at some point thereafter because the next time consciousness returns to her it’s no thanks to Sheldon, suddenly bolt upright and shouting.
“Danger! Danger!”
Once her heart starts beating again, it dawns on her that the thing that woke him up so abruptly was her cell phone, ringing at full volume on the coffee table. She glances at the now lit up display and, just as loudly, shouts back, “Leonard! Leonard!”
Making sense of that, around the time that she’s got her limbs in working order again, reaching for the phone, he glares at her. She bypasses the high road and sticks her tongue out at him, half a second before saying into the phone. “Hey, how was your flight?”
“Oh, it was…” she can hear Raj in the background, excitedly chattering about Swiss chocolate and she nearly has to stifle a laugh. Leonard doesn’t bother to complete that sentence. “How are you feeling?”
She sniffles but finds she doesn’t feel as nauseous as she did before she passed out. “Well, I’m still alive. No thanks to Sheldon.” Another glare is sent his way; he meets her gaze, indignant, then rises and rustles around in the kitchen. She slides her feet underneath his now abandoned blanket; the cold thing really isn’t going away no matter how much she layers or the fact that, sure, it’s February, but it’s also February in Pasadena.
“Sheldon’s there?” Leonard asks, confused and a little wary.
“It’s more I’m here.” In lieu of a good explanation for why that was, she just says, “I was out of tea.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause, waiting for explanation that never comes before he adds, “Okay. I’m really sorry about this.”
“No, it’s fine.” Sheldon walks back towards her, a familiar takeout menu grasped in his hand, and she doesn’t move even when he sits down and reaches for his blanket. It’s his turn to glare. Not bothering to cover the receiver, she says, “Deal with it.”
From the other end of the line, Leonard asks, “Huh?”
“Hey, I’ve got to go kill your roommate now, so, um, have fun, I miss you, and happy Valentine’s Day.” Her eyes never leave Sheldon.
“I miss you too,” is all she hears before she punches the ‘end’ button. It feels like the logical end to the conversation, not to mention that she had a sneaking suspicion that the distance was going to make him try to compensate by saying things their relationship really wasn’t ready for.
Sheldon eyes her, all-knowingly, and, while she was lying about having an urgent need to kill Sheldon, it’s becoming less and less of a lie. A side effect of this whole sick thing is alternating between overly vulnerable and easily angered. She’s at the latter end of that spectrum, currently. “Food?”
“I naturally assumed you would be joining me tonight,” he says, managing not to sound as put upon as the words dictate he should.
“Good call,” she replies, because she doesn’t want to have to say anything even remotely in the neighborhood of ‘you’re right’ to him. Penny scans the headline of the menu she’s snatched from him before directing her questioning gaze to him once more. “You realize it’s a Sunday right? The fever hasn’t turned your brain to mush?”
“Of course I do, Penny.” Somehow he makes it sound like she’s the weird one in this room. “I’m sick. This is where I eat when I’m sick.”
“Bull. Last time you were sick, I fed you.”
“Fine. In that case - “
She hits him square in the chest with the flimsy menu, not even needing to look to know what she wanted. “Number six. Order.”
“I don’t suppose that I’m getting a ‘please’ out of you?”
Silence greets him.
“Well alright then.”
---
“You don’t want to turn the DVD player off.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Why is it that you keep feeling the need to remind me of the date?”
“Just trust me on this.”
“That doesn’t seem very productive.”
“Fine. Remember when I made you watch The Lake House?”
“Must you also bring that up?”
“Basic cable is going to be exactly like that but tenfold.”
“I’m beginning to understand why some people aren’t fond of this holiday.”
“You think people have a problem because the television is playing chick flicks?”
“Well I don’t see why else.”
“They really broke the mold with you, sweetie.”
“Penny, what did I just say about physical contact?”
“It’s my hand. On your arm. Get over it.”
“That’s unlikely to happen - ow.”
---
Penny’s prepared for the VapoRub thing this go around.
“I thought you didn’t want anyone touching you,” she says, even after she’s already got the offending stuff on her fingers and he’s pulled up his shirt. She can’t help but think he looks different this time, skinny but not to the point where she’s counting ribs; she’d felt it earlier, her hand on his arm and more muscle tone than she’s used to on him flexing under her fingertips. He’s still pale as all get out, though she has a sneaking suspicion that that’s at least partially thanks to the flu; she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the bathroom earlier and she isn’t exactly at her best either.
“Not when it serves no purpose.” He settles back against the bed, allowing himself to relax. Sheldon’s body is always rigid, all the time, carefully contained, and it’s really something when she feels the tension fall out of his body. It’s really something because it’s so rare.
It feels intimate somehow and because of that alone she doesn’t bitch about how she’ll smell that stuff on her hands for the rest of the night no matter how many times she washes them.
When she’s done, he pulls his shirt back down and she straightens the covers automatically. She’s careful not to be too hands on; she’s careful not to let on to the fact that the room feels like it’s spinning once she rises from her perch on the edge of his bed.
“Night, Sheldon,” she says, from the doorway, and gets halfway down the hall before she hears him call her name quietly from the bedroom. She pauses just outside of Leonard’s bedroom, her eyes falling to the empty bed that looks more appealing than traipsing back to her own apartment and dealing with the mess that is her own bed, blankets kicked halfway off the bed and pillows haphazardly scattered.
“Penny,” he says again and she sags against the door frame.
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
There’s a pause that lasts so long she thinks he might have dozed off. Then, “You’re welcome to stay here tonight if you’d like.”
If she said she wasn’t surprised by the invitation, she’d be lying. “Really?”
She waits for a bazinga that never comes. “It appears you’ve moved half of your apartment here over the course of the day, so in the interest of practicality, yes.” There’s a beat. “No doubt your apartment probably is the better for it, considering the usual amount of clutter and disorganization.”
Penny’s just going to let that one go. “Yeah. Okay,” she replies, like she wasn’t already considering Leonard’s bed in the first place. It’s her boyfriend’s bed; there’s nothing weird about it - except that he’s not here and she’d just about hung up on him earlier, albeit in a nice way. She adds the “thank you” because she understands it’s a big deal for him to invite someone who hasn’t signed a contract already to stay the night.
Three minutes later and she’s burrowed under the covers in Leonard’s room when Sheldon pipes up again. “Penny?”
Sleep’s just beginning to creep up on her and the spins are gone. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“You didn’t sing Soft Kitty to me.”
She rolls to face the wall, finding that these walls really are thin and she sort of doesn’t blame Sheldon for kicking her and Leonard out of the apartment whenever they have sex. “I’m sick too, Sheldon, I sound like crap.”
“In this instance, it’s not a matter of perfect pitch.”
In Sheldon speak, he’s just looking for whatever comfort that song affords him. She smiles fondly at the memory of the last time they’d done this. “Fine. But only if we sing it in a round.”
“Penny.”
“Sheldon.”
Met with silence, she starts up the familiar tune, as if the wall isn’t there and they’re merely in different beds on opposite sides of one room. It’s routine by now, requires little thought to remember six lines and their order, and he comes in at the halfway point without any prodding. He’s a fast learner and they don’t stumble over each other as much as last time.
She wonders if he’s looking at the wall too, in her direction. She wonders if he’s smiling like he had when she had been in bed with a dislocated shoulder and he’d been doing his best to meet her demands - it was one of the few distinct memories she had after they’d given her the drugs.
When they’re done, she says “goodnight” again and closes her eyes. She doesn’t roll off her side and she thinks that maybe she can hear him sigh. He doesn’t return the sentiment.
---
The morning after next, she’s back on her knees in the bathroom.
When she summons the ability to stand up without feeling queasy, he’s standing in the kitchen pouring orange juice and taking vitamins, as well as his medication.
“Here,” he says, handing her a glass and the bottle of the cold and flu stuff she’d been downing capfuls of every time she remembered to. She looks at it, suddenly feeling her stomach revolt again at the sight of it. He adds, “You didn’t take it last night.”
“I think there was a reason for that.” She shudders but pours it anyways, tossing back another capful and sipping her orange juice. It stays down, luckily. Weakly, she offers a, “thanks.”
She makes her way over to the couch, clad in far less ugly pajamas than the previous two days. She’s got to shower at some point this morning - preferably sooner rather than later. He watches her from the counter. “I see you’re feeling no better than yesterday.”
“And you are?”
“Actually, yes.” She shoots an annoyed look his way. “I tend to get over illnesses rather fast. And I also remember to take my medication at a fixed schedule, rather than just whenever it occurs to me.” So he’d noticed that. “You might want to also consider taking vitamins.”
“You told me I was buying the wrong ones.”
“That didn’t mean not to buy them at all.”
It’s too early for a headache, it really is. There’s some amount of sarcasm in her voice when she says, “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“As am I.” He smiles a self-satisfied smile that she really should’ve expected. He’s still not getting the whole sarcasm thing and he probably never will. “Today is French toast day.”
She scrubs her hand over her face, shaking her head. “Sheldon, I understand that you’re feeling better but I’m not, so if maybe you could find an alternative or something that doesn’t include me having to cook.”
Sheldon suddenly looks very, very confused. So much so that he takes a few steps into the room, tilting his head to the side as he studies her. “None of what I just said alluded to your needing to cook.”
Now it’s her turn with the confused. “Okay. So you’re…kicking me out?”
“Perhaps a translator wouldn’t hurt.”
She glares.
“Today is French toast day. I am merely telling you what I’m having for breakfast. If you take issue with this, then I suggest you find your own means of obtaining breakfast. Otherwise, you are welcome to join me.”
Penny sputters. “Wait, are you offering to cook me breakfast?”
“You sway on your feet when you stand.” He observes, not incorrectly.
Seriously. Sheldon’s actually offering to cook for her. This is not a dream reality in which Sheldon’s actually being sweet, except she’s going to wake up and he’ll be complaining because he needs a ride somewhere. She’s not going to wake up. Although she may very well fall asleep at some point because this couch is surprisingly comfortable when you’re tired and feel like crap.
She knew there was a reason she elected to stay there.
“Wow, you really are feeling better.”
“I just said that. Why are you repeating it?”
He might be smiling, just a little, she thinks and she tries not to let him see the one that appears on her own lips. He’s clearly just pleased with his immune system. It probably has nothing to do with her.
Or maybe it does.
---
“I’m coming back in two days.”
“I know.” She presses her forehead against the armrest of the couch and tries to speak into the phone instead of the cushions. Leonard calls twice a day, and each time he’s counting off days until he comes back like it’s going to help anything. If he thinks she’s that reliant on his presence, he has another thing coming. “It’s okay. I’ve been sleeping over here and Sheldon made me breakfast and now I’m reading a back issue of Vogue that’s got to be like three years old.”
“Sheldon made you breakfast?” Is, of course, what he gets hung up on.
“Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, but he’s actually playing nice today.”
“Sick Sheldon is playing nice?” Leonard mumbles something to, presumably, Raj, that elicits some kind of noise from the other man. “What kind of medication are you taking exactly?”
“Not enough, that’s for sure.” She eyes the clock and finds that she can’t remember when she took that stuff this morning. Which is, like, her entire problem. “And he’s feeling better anyways. He doesn’t even look like Rudolph anymore. Hang on a second.”
She places her palm over the receiver before he can reply and yells.
“Sheldon!”
“Dear lord Penny, it’s a small apartment.” He comes to stand at the end of the hallway as he talks, coming from his bedroom she guesses. She stares at him; she’s pretty sure he changed clothes and his hair is damp, though she can’t remember the shower running. When she doesn’t say anything, he raises his eyebrows, prompting, “Yes?”
“Yeah. When did I take that stuff this morning?”
“If by ‘that stuff’ you mean your medication, you took it at approximately eight forty this morning.” She frowns at him but it’s more in wonderment as to what the hell she was doing up at eight in the morning. And then she remembers the retching. “Give or take five minutes of course. I can go look it up in my log if you would prefer.”
“No, no, I’m good. Thanks.” She turns her attention back to the phone and hears his bedroom door close again fairly quickly. “Sorry. I was consulting the human day planner.”
“I’m surprised he’s even letting you stay there,” Leonard remarks.
“Yeah, me too, but the shock kind of wore off after the first night.”
“No, I mean since he’s better and you’re not.”
She hadn’t thought in those terms. “Hmm. I guess he really is playing nice.”
Leonard gives a short little laugh on the other end.
“Anyways, I should go.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you.”
She smiles but it’s for show and god knows that’s all for naught when the intended recipient is on the other end of the line. “I know.”
Penny ends the call that way and, really, she could win awards for how bad these phone calls have been ending lately. They’re awkward, mostly, because she doesn’t know what to say when she’s already had a similar conversation a few hours ago with him and he acts like he’s going to swoop in on a plane from Switzerland and rescue her from the fucking flu.
She sighs, rolls her eyes at no one and nothing, and then repeats something else. “Sheldon!”
The bedroom door opens along with his mouth. “Penny, as I just pointed out, this apartment is not - “
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.” She waves a hand, dismissively, and turns in her seat to face him once more. “So if you’re feeling better and I’m feeling somewhere between the same and crappier, why haven’t you kicked me out yet?”
He’s got an expression on his face that says he can’t believe that this is what she bothered him for. “I see no reason to.”
“Um, you fear sick people? And human contact. And breaks in routine.”
“I don’t fear any of those things; I merely exhibit a strong dislike for them.” He crosses his arms, straightening up even further if that was at all possible. “Furthermore, I have likely already had what you had, so you pose little to no threat to my health.”
He skips the other two items on the list. She notices.
“Was that all you needed?” He asks, rather impatiently, his question brought on by another lengthy silence on her end.
“Yeah,” she says, lying back down with her magazine. She listens to the door close for the second time and absolutely does not read into this. At all.
(Except maybe she kind of does).
---
He gets up right in the middle of dinner, Thai food and just the two of them because Howard had been warned about flu-ridden and irritable people and was just fine making plans with Bernadette.
“Sheldon?” She draws out the syllables in his name as she watches him grab something from the counter. It isn’t until he places it in front of her that she realizes it’s her meds again. Every six hours and, would you look at that, she must’ve taken it at two. “You made a schedule didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he replies, simply.
“Trying to get rid of me huh?” She asks, jokingly, and yet kind of honestly.
He gestures in the general direction of the tissue box and the tissue that sits in front of it. “I would much prefer to get rid of that.”
She smiles sheepishly and makes the journey to the trashcan with it before sitting back down, looking his way for approval. He nods, which is basically approval for Sheldon, and she thinks it’s kind of sweet.
---
It’s not so sweet when she gets woken up in the middle of the night.
Someone is prodding her shoulder, gently but kind of awkwardly, and she groans and rolls over in the direction of said prodding. Sheldon peers back at her, by the light of his green lantern thingie.
“Sheldon, what?” She mumbles, restraining any instinctual urge she may have to yell his ass out of the room for waking her up. Penny props herself up on her elbow and glances at the clock, groaning once she does. “It’s after two in the morning. What do you want?”
“It’s time for your medication.”
She stares at him, hoping he was joking but knowing that even Sheldon isn’t that stupid to wake her up for a reason that he doesn’t deem of extreme importance. Still. “You’re fucking kidding me right now?”
“Why would I joke about medication?” He looks positively affronted, at least she thinks he must because the green glow is just kind of making him look creepy.
“Ugh, fine. Just give it to me.”
She does not thank him on his way out.
---
She also doesn’t go right back to sleep.
No, she tosses and turns and acquires a headache and is just generally agitated because she was having a decent dream for once and now she’s wide awake.
So. If she’s not sleeping then neither is he.
“Penny,” he’s wary after the initial shock of being woken up. His voice sounds clear, not hoarse like hers, and she kind of hates him a little for being better. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah there’s a problem.” She eyes the wide open space between where he’s lying, perfectly straight, and the edge of the bed but does nothing about it. Yet. “You woke me up; now I can’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry but how is that my problem?”
“You woke me up.” She over-enunciates, conveniently leaving out the part where he did it for her own good, theoretically. It hinders her point. “That pretty much makes it your problem. Or your fault. Something. Anyways, in lieu of sleeping pills - and we don’t have any of those, because I checked - I figured you could either keep me occupied or bore me to sleep with physics talk.”
Apparently realizing that she has no plans to leave, he pushes himself up into a sitting position, up against the wall. The movement makes the whole situation feel less personal and it’s the push she needs to plop herself down on the side of the bed furthest from him, mirroring his position. He looks at her strangely but doesn’t pitch a fit about her being in his bed, in some form or another. She’s done this before; much like with his rule about people not being in his room, it’s become repetitive and futile, rules broken long ago. “I don’t excel in small talk, as you are aware.”
“So tell me physics stuff. Explain to me what Leonard’s seeing without us in Switzerland - the super collider thing.”
“Large Hadron Collider,” he corrects.
“Right. That.” She smiles in the darkness, quite proud of herself. If she gets him on this topic he’ll take endlessly and she’ll either gain some information so that she can look smarter about this stuff than she actually is in front of Leonard or it’ll be lights out for her - quite possibly both, in that order, which is frankly what she’s hoping for. “Tell me about that.”
Sheldon stops looking at her then, turning his attention somewhere towards the wall - he’s not focused but rather lost in his thoughts, organizing and processing. She’s familiar with this and she settles back to absorb whatever he manages to say in plain English. “The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator, tasked with colliding opposing particle beams of - Penny,” he stops suddenly, his head snapping towards her, “I can’t tell you about this.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Why not? Don’t you know like everything about…everything that has to do with science?”
“It’s far from a question of intelligence.” She thinks if he were slightly less agitated right now he’d be doing that little I’m-mocking-you laugh. “You stated that your plan is for me to, and I quote, bore you to sleep with physics talk.”
She latches on to the reasoning for his pause in about half a second. “Sheldon, I will not fall asleep in this bed. I promise.”
His eyes narrow, doubt coloring in his expression.
“I would pinky swear you but you probably don’t even know what that means, so you’re going to have to settle for my word.”
There’s still some hesitation but he seems to settle after a few seconds, clearing his throat. “As I was saying, it’s tasked with colliding opposing particle beams of protons - “
---
In the morning, she wakes up under the blankets of a bed that is definitely not Leonard’s.
It is empty.
Stumbling out into the hallway, she finds Sheldon up and about, although he pauses in front of the fridge when he sees her. She knows the admonishment is coming before his mouth even opens. She surrenders.
“You feel asleep in my bed, Penny.”
“I know.” She tries for a bright smile. “But I slept well.”
Turns out he can do the whole fake how-nice-for-you smile in a way that is not, in fact, creepy. She has a feeling it’s going to be her being nice to him today, instead of the other way around.
---
Her cell rings just after noon; she doesn’t pick it up, mostly because her hands are occupied and Sheldon’s closer to it.
That doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.
“Hello Leonard,” Sheldon answers, even tone not at all belying the smug look he’s giving her. She waves the knife in her hand in his direction, a slicing movement, and narrows her eyes. He’s lucky that she’s feeling better.
“Sheldon,” Leonard’s voice is instantly suspicious, “why are you answering Penny’s phone?”
“Penny is currently indisposed; if you would like to leave a message for her I would be happy to relay it to her when her task is completed.”
“Sheldon,” she hisses from the kitchen. He doesn’t flinch.
“What - what are you talking about?” Leonard sputters. “Put Penny on the phone.”
“I’m sorry but I just can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Penny is experiencing the meaning of an eye for an eye.” Sheldon explains. “She inconvenienced me last night and thus I am doing the same to her this afternoon.”
“Oh come on, what could she have possibly done?”
“She slept in my bed.”
Leonard’s voice raises to such a degree that Penny can hear him, faintly, all the way from the other side of the room. “She did what?”
“Sheldon!” She shrieks, setting the knife down and making a grab for the phone; he lets her have it, rather than experience her hogtieing and castrating skills first hand, but her finger hits the end button by accident mid-grab and then the connection is gone. “Sheldon, you can’t say things like that.”
“Like what? I told him the truth.”
“Yeah, one that he’s going to read into. A lot.” She dials Leonard again, hoping to do some damage control, and the glower she gives Sheldon from where she’s standing, one leg more or less poised right between his knees, prevents him from trying anything. The phone rings but it goes to voicemail before anyone answers. “Dammit, why won’t he pick up?”
“Considering the amount of static on the other end, it’s very likely that he is walking somewhere and lost reception.” Sheldon oh so helpfully informs her. At least it isn’t ‘he’s ignoring you’. “You should try back later. In the meantime - “ he gestures the way of the kitchen.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she replies, with a shake of her head, marching back over to the counter. “Split pea soup with little frankfurters and homemade croutons,” she mutters, not at all believing that this is really her life right now. “You’re not even that sick anymore.”
---
“Okay, so you’re right.” She admits, setting her phone down on the coffee table and turning her attention to the tall man in front of the computer. “He had no reception, he wasn’t ignoring me, just a little confused.” Sheldon continues to stare at the screen and makes no move to acknowledge her. “Okay, I said you’re right and you don’t have anything to say since when?”
He does not turn but there’s a vein throbbing that tells her he’s just intensely focused. “I already knew I was right.”
“Humble, aren’t you?” Penny doesn’t get an answer to that either and when she cranes her neck she can get a perfect view over his shoulder of the Tetris game that he’s playing. “Level fourteen. Nice.”
When he doesn’t answer that either, she rises from the couch and makes herself comfortable right there on the edge of his desk. She isn’t wearing old pajamas today, instead having switched to a tank and flowered sweatpants, her hair straight and falling down her shoulders instead of in a messy bun. She feels better and with feeling better comes her confidence so that instead of throwing glares or mostly witty one-liners in his direction, she can slide so that her leg is just brushing against his. The movement catches his attention and his fingers twitch over the mouse.
“That’s never going to stop bugging you is it?” Penny observes, making no move to extricate herself. His hand settles and he keeps up with the little odd-shaped blocks on the screen, the level changing to fifteen. “You let your mom and your sister hug you. I mean, it’s awkward but still.”
“I have also hugged you twice now, Penny. Not to mention numerous liberties I allow you to take. I seem to remember you being drugged and very hands on not all that long ago.” Her cheeks flush from the little snippets of that night that she actually can remember. Mostly she remembers the round, the way she kept prodding him, the way he acquiesced. She has no memory of the ride home or falling asleep but the song anchors her in that moment.
She balances her foot on the seat now, right in the space between the armrest and his ass and he stops bothering to react, instead leaving his eyes affixed to the screen. It’s as close to acceptance as you can possibly get with him, becoming part of his background instead of his latest nuisance.
(Penny wonders about the kind of person who could overcome even that, who could break through and become the thing focused on, who can force his work and his love of science into the backseat; Penny wonders if such a person even exists.)
---
After dinner, she finds that she’s had enough one-on-one time with Sheldon. The fact that that didn’t happen sooner is nothing short of a miracle.
“I think I’m going to head home,” she says, her hands full of blankets and the clothes she changed out of when she showered this morning.
Sheldon’s voice is entirely neutral when he replies, “Alright.”
She stares at him, waiting for him to say something about how he thought she’d never leave. It sounds like -- something he would do - hell, it is something he has done. Except he doesn’t. He goes back to his email. He’s going back to work tomorrow and she’s called in to the Cheesecake Factory to let them know that, while she wouldn’t be there tomorrow, she’d be back before the end of the week; it effectively marks the end of their never-ending vacation from reality and while it wasn’t exactly enjoyable, she’s fairly sure that at least half of it contained some of the few times in recent memory where she could actually imagine a reality in which living with Sheldon might not be as trying as Leonard tends to make it out to be.
Nothing ever comes and she heads across the hall without anything in the way of goodbye or goodnight - this will, after all, be a two or three trip ordeal in order to get the rest of her stuff back into her own apartment - getting as far as her door before she digs her keys out of the pocket of her pants. The key that isn’t there. And the door that certainly isn’t unlocked.
Sheldon’s looking right at the door when she walks through it again, as if expecting a quick return. “You don’t happen to know where my key is, do you?”
“No.”
“Um, okay.” She refrains from any sense of panic she may suddenly feel. Maybe she left it in her apartment the last time she was over there, looking for a change of clothes and that book she’d kept picking up and putting back down after the first ten pages for about seven months now - turns out, that book hadn’t been as bad as the first chapter had indicated. “Okay. This is fine. I just need the spare key you guys keep.”
“Look in the key bowl,” he instructs her, nodding towards the bowl that she already knew from her vantage point contained only one set of keys: his own.
Calm, she tells herself, just stay calm. “And if they’re not in the key bowl?”
“Then they’re not in the apartment,” he replies, elaborating before she can ask him to. “Specifically, Leonard must have once again opted not to follow proper protocol and left them at your apartment, rendering them useless.”
“Wait, there’s protocol for this?”
“Yes. Generally one makes sure of the return of said spare keys to their designated place so as to avoid situations like this.” His fingers pause over the keyboard for as long as it takes to get that sentence out. Just. “You’re going to need to call the landlord.”
“Yeah, thanks, I’m familiar with this.” She almost aims a poignant look in his direction before realizing that it might not look so great when coupled with the next words out of her mouth. “Sheldon, I’m going to have to - “
“I’m aware.”
And that’s how Penny comes to spend four straight nights with Sheldon.
---
“Sheldon?”
There’s no answer other than running water from the sink in the bathroom, audible through the cracked door. She peeks just enough that she can tell he’s only brushing his teeth before she goes any further.
“Sheldon?” She pushes open the door halfway and he narrows his eyes at her, a scowl making itself known through the foam from the toothpaste at the corners of his lips. Without trepidation, she holds up the shirt that she’s rescued from his drawer. “Can I borrow this?”
“That’s my shirt.”
“Yeah, I know. Can I borrow it?”
“That’s my shirt,” he repeats, a record that can’t stop skipping.
“I get that Sheldon; you said it twice already.” She allows the full weight of the exasperation she’s feeling color her voice. Sheldon doesn’t understand a good half of the emotions she regularly cycles through, but anything in the area of mad or frustrated he seems to pick up on pretty quickly. Survival instinct, she thinks. “Look, I can’t get any of my stuff and all of my clothes that I have here are dirty. Yours aren’t.”
“Perhaps you should give Leonard’s a try. I’m given to understand that traditionally, when spending the night without an extra change of clothes, the girlfriend helps herself to the boyfriend’s clothes.”
He has to have gotten that from television. Somewhere. Probably something that she made him watch. She watches him put his toothbrush back under the UV light and manages not to laugh or shake her head. “Sweetie, Leonard’s about a half inch shorter than me - it doesn’t really work that way with us.”
Sheldon puzzles over this for a moment. Then, “I recall you dancing in my kitchen in a men’s button down.”
“A men’s button down that wasn’t Leonard’s.”
“Then whose was it?”
“It wasn’t Leonard’s,” she reiterates, this time with far more force. She honestly can’t remember whose it -was, just that it was some ex-boyfriend’s and he left it at her apartment and never took it back - she wears it sometimes, an old memento and Leonard hadn’t even asked. Either his perception of their respective heights and sizes is completely off or he just preferred not to acknowledge it at all. “Sheldon, seriously, my asking you was less of a question and more of a courtesy.”
“Why would you bother with that if you weren’t looking for my input?”
“I don’t know - I was trying to be nice and a good guest and forgot that you don’t really care about things like courtesy.”
“Well you’d do well to remember that for next time. It would save us all a lot of time and energy.”
“So I can wear your shirt?”
“You said I had no say.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
He whirls on her. “Penny, I - “
“Never mind,” she says, realizing that this can only go in circles from here on out, holding up a hand and heading towards Leonard’s bedroom so she can change.
---
“Hey Sheldon.”
“Please tell me that you aren’t after my pants as well.”
She giggles, outside of his bedroom door, seeing him sitting up in his darkened room. “No, I’m not.”
“That’s certainly a relief.”
With any other guy, she’s fairly sure they’d be ecstatic that she was trying to get them out of their pants. Under any circumstances, literally or figuratively. “I just - “ and she knows that with this much amusement in her voice, the sentiment will mean a little less than she intends to, so she takes a breath and shifts back to something resembling serious. “I just wanted to thank you.”
“For what?” His head moves, like he’s looking for her, and she steps into his room then. Again. She tiptoes until she’s at the side of his bed, same as last night, and suppresses a smile when he jumps in reaction to the shifting of weight on his bed. “Penny.”
“For letting me stay here and being nice about it at least half of the time.” She leans back against the headboard; this is becoming far too familiar and yet she’s strangely ceased to care. “I know I kind of invited myself but you didn’t have to go with it - I know you hate your routine getting all out of whack or whatever. So thanks.”
“I was already sick, therefore my routine was already altered.” She hates when he does that, when he rationalizes things out to such a degree that it strips his actions of any discernable meaning on an emotional level. And then, out of nowhere, a little hope makes its way into the equation. “And you’re very welcome, Penny.”
The surprise sincerity of his statement washes over her in a wave that she isn’t likely to soon forget. She lets herself bask in that, for the moment, that tiny sliver of humanity that he tends to show only to her, stopping just short of the point where the silence becomes something awkward. “Now what were you telling me about the collider before I fell asleep. I think I might actually be able to understand more of it now.”
---
Penny wakes to a hand on her shoulder, a prodding that differs from the last time she remembers, a not-so-distant time ago. She tries to stretch her legs out, kick at the sheets, before her knee bumps into something hard and she discovers that the sheets are in fact just one of her spare blankets from her apartment and she isn’t in anything even resembling a bed.
“Penny,” a voice that is distinctly not Sheldon’s whispers, causing the world to swim back into living color as she opens her eyes and finds herself staring up into Leonard’s.
“What?” The first thing that strikes her - you know, other than the fact that Leonard’s home and the sun isn’t even out yet, glaring through the windows - is that her neck hurts. It’s the damn chair in their living room and she vaguely remembers collapsing into it when she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find that she’d fallen asleep in Sheldon’s bed again, forcing him onto the couch without alternative. He never slept in Leonard’s room - why, she had no idea. She hadn’t fallen asleep with this blanket though, that’s for certain, which means Sheldon must have draped it over her. Something tightens in her chest as she sits up fully, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. “Sheldon?”
“No, it’s me. It’s Leonard.” He replies, misunderstanding her. She gets her answer nonetheless, finding Sheldon passed out cold on the couch, his own blanket covering him. He hadn’t gone back to bed.
“Hey,” she manages, as quietly as possible, trying not to disturb him. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah,” he replies, offering no further explanation. She doesn’t press for it either. “What are you doing out here?”
“I locked myself out and I ended up having to - “ she sighs, thinking that the rest of this tale is just a little too complicated to explain, made out of subtleties and far too much background information. “You know what, it’s not important. You should get some sleep; I’m sure that was a long flight.”
“Yeah. I didn’t sleep on it either. Raj kept chattering away.” He seems mildly annoyed by that fact; jetlag can make anyone irritable after all. His hand finds hers and he moves as if to pull her out of the chair as he turns towards the hallway. “Come to bed with me.”
“Actually,” she pauses, glancing at the man on the couch who hadn’t left her, who managed to put himself second for a while, and finds that she isn’t getting up for anything right now. “You know what, I’m comfortable right now. You should get some sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
She shifts, pulling the blanket and dislodging it enough that he gets a two-second long perfect view of the logo on the front of the short sleeve t-shirt she’d stolen from Sheldon.
“Is that - are you wearing Sheldon’s shirt?”
“Goodnight, Leonard,” she says, choosing not to address either one of his questions. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He must disappear into his room after that because she doesn’t hear another word from him, shutting her eyes and trying to orient herself better to the chair.
On an exhale, she whispers, “Goodnight, Sheldon” and drifts off back to sleep.
---
fin.
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Characters/Pairings: Sheldon, Penny. Ship most definitely implied; background Leonard/Penny.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8,641.
Summary: Post ep for 'The Large Hadron Collision'. The five days that changed the world -- or at least Penny's perception of it.
It’s the freaking day that will never end.
Which of course turns into the very long series of days that absolutely will never freaking end.
“Sheldon, you know,” she pauses, not for effect but instead to blow her nose, “this would be a lot more pleasant right now if we could have some quiet time.”
“Okay, Penny,” he pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders, “please close and lock the door on your way out.”
She would laugh if she wasn’t worried that she’d end up inadvertently either coughing or choking. It’s just nasty all around. “Yeah, right, Moonpie.”
Really though, she would gladly be out that door right now - this being hour six of day one of the never ending sick day/week/whatever, starring Penny and Sheldon - except for the fact that she’s curled up in one of his blankets as well as one of her own and he’s not out of tea or tissues (she is out of both) and they’re kind of…enabling one another. She would leave except then she would be sick and alone, on Valentine’s Day, and she’d rather be here with him.
It sounds romantic but, as anyone with eyes who can fully take in the overuse of plaid and baggy pajamas can see, it’s pretty much the unsexiest situation in the world.
“Penny?”
She doesn’t turn her head to look at him so much as let her head loll to the side on which he’s sitting. “What?”
“No one calls me Moonpie.”
A pillow flies in his direction and she settles against the arm of the couch, dislodging his remote with her feet and making absolutely no apologies for it.
---
After she stopped puking and he stopped puking and it was just the two of them left with runny noses and coughs that made them sound like they were dying - unbeknownst to one another - Leonard told her that he was going to call Raj and see if he wanted to go.
“What about Sheldon?”
By now, she was in the pajamas from hell, the ones she reserved for sick days where people didn’t have to see her. Currently, she was breaking that rule and so far past the point of caring that it was ridiculous. Leonard took in this drastic departure from her normal camisole-and-shorts sleepwear of choice with careful disappointment, at least that’s what she figured from the half-second glance she spared in his direction before going into the closet for more blankets. “He’s kind of sick too.”
Sniffle. “With what?”
“Well, he was throwing up and now he’s…” he’s twisting his hands in that fidgety way that usually seems endearing but is now driving her batshit crazy, “you know how he is when he’s sick.”
“He probably has what I have,” she decides, with some amount of annoyance, just for the simple fact that when Sheldon’s sick he likes to be taken care of, usually by her, and that is so very much not going to happen this time around. “I’m surprised you don’t.”
“Yeah, why is that?”
She turns to look at him. “I don’t know. You’re the genius. Maybe you have some amazing immune system or something.”
He tilts his head to the side, in a think-y way. “Hmm. Maybe between the lactose intolerance, the sleep apnea, and being allergic to everything known to man someone cut me a break.”
“Isn’t that nice for you,” she replies, wrapping herself up in a blanket and heading back towards her room. She flops back down on the bed a little too forcefully.
“Are you sure you aren’t going to be better in time to leave?”
“Leonard,” she’s about to come up with some half-witty retort, except the jostling from a moment ago stirs up something inside of her that makes her stomach lurch.
Her run to the bathroom again pretty much answers that question.
---
Her cell phone wakes her up.
It’s eleven by then and Leonard’s gone and her kitchen is really pretty far from adequately stocked. Specifically, she’s out of tea and the dry toast she tries to force down kind of makes her gag.
By eleven fifteen she’s grabbed her blanket and the one remaining box of tissues in her apartment and headed over to 4A. She doesn’t knock before she enters and Sheldon regards her, quiet and red-nosed, from the couch. His eyes follow her as she closes the door and walks across their living room but not for the reasons that Leonard’s were.
“What?” She asks, narrowing her eyes as she drops her blanket on the far side of the couch, along with the tissues, and rooting through their cabinets, looking for the tea.
“Please, help yourself,” he remarks, turning his attention back to his television program. Penny marvels at his ability to be snippy even while most likely running a fever and definitely suffering from the flu. But this is Sheldon. And then she finds the tea and cares a little less about that.
“Do you want some?” She figures she should ask first, since technically she’s taking advantage of resources that aren’t strictly hers. There is nothing but water in front of him - room temperature, since supposedly that was better for you - and Penny’s ninety percent sure that if she stays here any longer than the time it’s going to take to finish her tea, which let’s face it she will, then she’s basically committing herself to handling lunch for the both of them.
“Yes, thank you, although I feel the need to remind you that I like - “
In no mood to let him get his lecture out, she interjects a very firm, “I know, Sheldon.”
Content to have him sit there on the couch and twitch for the next two minutes until he figures out that she’s just going to ignore him, she goes about brewing said tea. The television is playing a mid-day Battlestar Galactica marathon, on low, and she unfortunately knows enough about this particular television schedule to realize that it will abruptly switch from Battlestar to Caprica and Sheldon will switch channels and make some comment, behavior that can basically be boiled down to ‘Sheldon is change resistant’.
The tea kettle sets on the stove and she makes herself a little home out of the blanket she brought and still Sheldon does not say a word, head leaned slightly back, eyes only sometimes finding the television, and she asks, “Are you okay?”
“Leonard went to Switzerland with Raj, Penny,” Sheldon says, sounding more needy than usual but not yet rocking the hoarse, sore throat thing that she seems to have acquired. Isn’t she lucky.
“Yeah, I know. He told me before he left.”
Presumably finding his point, he continues. “That should’ve been me.”
“Get in line,” she croaks and waits for the retort that she knows is coming.
---
Sheldon is on some self-made schedule of ‘take two of these every four hours’ and ‘one capful of this every six hours’. There is literally a schedule, in Leonard’s handwriting nonetheless, meaning he was most likely dictated to before he was allowed to leave.
She isn’t surprised.
Problem is he miscounted the pills. Or maybe Leonard did. Someone dropped the ball because he’s got one left by three and she literally would give anything not to be the one to tell him that, just to escape the shit fit that ensues.
While it’s occurring, she realizes she popped a Dayquil when she woke up and hadn’t really bothered with medication since, which might be why she feels even more like crap than he does.
By the time she’s had to say “no, I’m not driving to the drugstore to go buy you cold medicine” and followed it up with “because I’m sick”, she’s come up with the brilliant idea to raid his and Leonard’s supply of medication, as well as her own, and make do with that.
Unsurprisingly, hers is sparse, consisting mostly of almost empty bottles and a thing of Halls cough drops. But between Sheldon, who has to be prepared for everything ever, and Leonard, who is allergic to everything not to mention has like no immune system, except apparently with this, they hit the freaking jackpot.
Every medication known to man - or at least pretty close to it - ends up scattered all over his coffee table, joined by various cups of tea and orange juice, bottles of water, and tissue boxes galore. The clutter, of course, freaks Sheldon the fuck out relatively quickly.
“Penny,” he starts, ready to chastise at any moment.
“Don’t start with me if you want to live,” she replies, quickly, swallowing a capful of something that’s labeled ‘cold and flu’ and tastes just as nasty as they all do, chasing it with the rest of her orange juice. When that’s settled, she looks up at him. “Have you found something that’ll work?”
He’s frowning down at a white and blue box in his hands but answers anyways. “I suppose this is an acceptable replacement.”
“Then take them,” she all but orders, meeting his look with a glare before bothering to ascertain the emotion behind it.
---
The lunch ordeal comes shortly after.
He counts off the reasons why he is never initiating physical contact with another human being ever again for the next ten minutes.
When he’s done, she rises, pats his cheek, leaving her hand there for a deliberately prolonged amount of time - he recoils at her touch and she would laugh if she felt better - and then makes a run for the bathroom to throw up.
Again.
---
Somewhere after Sheldon reiterates that Moonpie is reserved for MeeMaw only, Penny passes out on her side of the couch. She blames this on the cold medicine. Sheldon must follow suit at some point thereafter because the next time consciousness returns to her it’s no thanks to Sheldon, suddenly bolt upright and shouting.
“Danger! Danger!”
Once her heart starts beating again, it dawns on her that the thing that woke him up so abruptly was her cell phone, ringing at full volume on the coffee table. She glances at the now lit up display and, just as loudly, shouts back, “Leonard! Leonard!”
Making sense of that, around the time that she’s got her limbs in working order again, reaching for the phone, he glares at her. She bypasses the high road and sticks her tongue out at him, half a second before saying into the phone. “Hey, how was your flight?”
“Oh, it was…” she can hear Raj in the background, excitedly chattering about Swiss chocolate and she nearly has to stifle a laugh. Leonard doesn’t bother to complete that sentence. “How are you feeling?”
She sniffles but finds she doesn’t feel as nauseous as she did before she passed out. “Well, I’m still alive. No thanks to Sheldon.” Another glare is sent his way; he meets her gaze, indignant, then rises and rustles around in the kitchen. She slides her feet underneath his now abandoned blanket; the cold thing really isn’t going away no matter how much she layers or the fact that, sure, it’s February, but it’s also February in Pasadena.
“Sheldon’s there?” Leonard asks, confused and a little wary.
“It’s more I’m here.” In lieu of a good explanation for why that was, she just says, “I was out of tea.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause, waiting for explanation that never comes before he adds, “Okay. I’m really sorry about this.”
“No, it’s fine.” Sheldon walks back towards her, a familiar takeout menu grasped in his hand, and she doesn’t move even when he sits down and reaches for his blanket. It’s his turn to glare. Not bothering to cover the receiver, she says, “Deal with it.”
From the other end of the line, Leonard asks, “Huh?”
“Hey, I’ve got to go kill your roommate now, so, um, have fun, I miss you, and happy Valentine’s Day.” Her eyes never leave Sheldon.
“I miss you too,” is all she hears before she punches the ‘end’ button. It feels like the logical end to the conversation, not to mention that she had a sneaking suspicion that the distance was going to make him try to compensate by saying things their relationship really wasn’t ready for.
Sheldon eyes her, all-knowingly, and, while she was lying about having an urgent need to kill Sheldon, it’s becoming less and less of a lie. A side effect of this whole sick thing is alternating between overly vulnerable and easily angered. She’s at the latter end of that spectrum, currently. “Food?”
“I naturally assumed you would be joining me tonight,” he says, managing not to sound as put upon as the words dictate he should.
“Good call,” she replies, because she doesn’t want to have to say anything even remotely in the neighborhood of ‘you’re right’ to him. Penny scans the headline of the menu she’s snatched from him before directing her questioning gaze to him once more. “You realize it’s a Sunday right? The fever hasn’t turned your brain to mush?”
“Of course I do, Penny.” Somehow he makes it sound like she’s the weird one in this room. “I’m sick. This is where I eat when I’m sick.”
“Bull. Last time you were sick, I fed you.”
“Fine. In that case - “
She hits him square in the chest with the flimsy menu, not even needing to look to know what she wanted. “Number six. Order.”
“I don’t suppose that I’m getting a ‘please’ out of you?”
Silence greets him.
“Well alright then.”
---
“You don’t want to turn the DVD player off.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Valentine’s Day.”
“Why is it that you keep feeling the need to remind me of the date?”
“Just trust me on this.”
“That doesn’t seem very productive.”
“Fine. Remember when I made you watch The Lake House?”
“Must you also bring that up?”
“Basic cable is going to be exactly like that but tenfold.”
“I’m beginning to understand why some people aren’t fond of this holiday.”
“You think people have a problem because the television is playing chick flicks?”
“Well I don’t see why else.”
“They really broke the mold with you, sweetie.”
“Penny, what did I just say about physical contact?”
“It’s my hand. On your arm. Get over it.”
“That’s unlikely to happen - ow.”
---
Penny’s prepared for the VapoRub thing this go around.
“I thought you didn’t want anyone touching you,” she says, even after she’s already got the offending stuff on her fingers and he’s pulled up his shirt. She can’t help but think he looks different this time, skinny but not to the point where she’s counting ribs; she’d felt it earlier, her hand on his arm and more muscle tone than she’s used to on him flexing under her fingertips. He’s still pale as all get out, though she has a sneaking suspicion that that’s at least partially thanks to the flu; she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the bathroom earlier and she isn’t exactly at her best either.
“Not when it serves no purpose.” He settles back against the bed, allowing himself to relax. Sheldon’s body is always rigid, all the time, carefully contained, and it’s really something when she feels the tension fall out of his body. It’s really something because it’s so rare.
It feels intimate somehow and because of that alone she doesn’t bitch about how she’ll smell that stuff on her hands for the rest of the night no matter how many times she washes them.
When she’s done, he pulls his shirt back down and she straightens the covers automatically. She’s careful not to be too hands on; she’s careful not to let on to the fact that the room feels like it’s spinning once she rises from her perch on the edge of his bed.
“Night, Sheldon,” she says, from the doorway, and gets halfway down the hall before she hears him call her name quietly from the bedroom. She pauses just outside of Leonard’s bedroom, her eyes falling to the empty bed that looks more appealing than traipsing back to her own apartment and dealing with the mess that is her own bed, blankets kicked halfway off the bed and pillows haphazardly scattered.
“Penny,” he says again and she sags against the door frame.
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
There’s a pause that lasts so long she thinks he might have dozed off. Then, “You’re welcome to stay here tonight if you’d like.”
If she said she wasn’t surprised by the invitation, she’d be lying. “Really?”
She waits for a bazinga that never comes. “It appears you’ve moved half of your apartment here over the course of the day, so in the interest of practicality, yes.” There’s a beat. “No doubt your apartment probably is the better for it, considering the usual amount of clutter and disorganization.”
Penny’s just going to let that one go. “Yeah. Okay,” she replies, like she wasn’t already considering Leonard’s bed in the first place. It’s her boyfriend’s bed; there’s nothing weird about it - except that he’s not here and she’d just about hung up on him earlier, albeit in a nice way. She adds the “thank you” because she understands it’s a big deal for him to invite someone who hasn’t signed a contract already to stay the night.
Three minutes later and she’s burrowed under the covers in Leonard’s room when Sheldon pipes up again. “Penny?”
Sleep’s just beginning to creep up on her and the spins are gone. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“You didn’t sing Soft Kitty to me.”
She rolls to face the wall, finding that these walls really are thin and she sort of doesn’t blame Sheldon for kicking her and Leonard out of the apartment whenever they have sex. “I’m sick too, Sheldon, I sound like crap.”
“In this instance, it’s not a matter of perfect pitch.”
In Sheldon speak, he’s just looking for whatever comfort that song affords him. She smiles fondly at the memory of the last time they’d done this. “Fine. But only if we sing it in a round.”
“Penny.”
“Sheldon.”
Met with silence, she starts up the familiar tune, as if the wall isn’t there and they’re merely in different beds on opposite sides of one room. It’s routine by now, requires little thought to remember six lines and their order, and he comes in at the halfway point without any prodding. He’s a fast learner and they don’t stumble over each other as much as last time.
She wonders if he’s looking at the wall too, in her direction. She wonders if he’s smiling like he had when she had been in bed with a dislocated shoulder and he’d been doing his best to meet her demands - it was one of the few distinct memories she had after they’d given her the drugs.
When they’re done, she says “goodnight” again and closes her eyes. She doesn’t roll off her side and she thinks that maybe she can hear him sigh. He doesn’t return the sentiment.
---
The morning after next, she’s back on her knees in the bathroom.
When she summons the ability to stand up without feeling queasy, he’s standing in the kitchen pouring orange juice and taking vitamins, as well as his medication.
“Here,” he says, handing her a glass and the bottle of the cold and flu stuff she’d been downing capfuls of every time she remembered to. She looks at it, suddenly feeling her stomach revolt again at the sight of it. He adds, “You didn’t take it last night.”
“I think there was a reason for that.” She shudders but pours it anyways, tossing back another capful and sipping her orange juice. It stays down, luckily. Weakly, she offers a, “thanks.”
She makes her way over to the couch, clad in far less ugly pajamas than the previous two days. She’s got to shower at some point this morning - preferably sooner rather than later. He watches her from the counter. “I see you’re feeling no better than yesterday.”
“And you are?”
“Actually, yes.” She shoots an annoyed look his way. “I tend to get over illnesses rather fast. And I also remember to take my medication at a fixed schedule, rather than just whenever it occurs to me.” So he’d noticed that. “You might want to also consider taking vitamins.”
“You told me I was buying the wrong ones.”
“That didn’t mean not to buy them at all.”
It’s too early for a headache, it really is. There’s some amount of sarcasm in her voice when she says, “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“As am I.” He smiles a self-satisfied smile that she really should’ve expected. He’s still not getting the whole sarcasm thing and he probably never will. “Today is French toast day.”
She scrubs her hand over her face, shaking her head. “Sheldon, I understand that you’re feeling better but I’m not, so if maybe you could find an alternative or something that doesn’t include me having to cook.”
Sheldon suddenly looks very, very confused. So much so that he takes a few steps into the room, tilting his head to the side as he studies her. “None of what I just said alluded to your needing to cook.”
Now it’s her turn with the confused. “Okay. So you’re…kicking me out?”
“Perhaps a translator wouldn’t hurt.”
She glares.
“Today is French toast day. I am merely telling you what I’m having for breakfast. If you take issue with this, then I suggest you find your own means of obtaining breakfast. Otherwise, you are welcome to join me.”
Penny sputters. “Wait, are you offering to cook me breakfast?”
“You sway on your feet when you stand.” He observes, not incorrectly.
Seriously. Sheldon’s actually offering to cook for her. This is not a dream reality in which Sheldon’s actually being sweet, except she’s going to wake up and he’ll be complaining because he needs a ride somewhere. She’s not going to wake up. Although she may very well fall asleep at some point because this couch is surprisingly comfortable when you’re tired and feel like crap.
She knew there was a reason she elected to stay there.
“Wow, you really are feeling better.”
“I just said that. Why are you repeating it?”
He might be smiling, just a little, she thinks and she tries not to let him see the one that appears on her own lips. He’s clearly just pleased with his immune system. It probably has nothing to do with her.
Or maybe it does.
---
“I’m coming back in two days.”
“I know.” She presses her forehead against the armrest of the couch and tries to speak into the phone instead of the cushions. Leonard calls twice a day, and each time he’s counting off days until he comes back like it’s going to help anything. If he thinks she’s that reliant on his presence, he has another thing coming. “It’s okay. I’ve been sleeping over here and Sheldon made me breakfast and now I’m reading a back issue of Vogue that’s got to be like three years old.”
“Sheldon made you breakfast?” Is, of course, what he gets hung up on.
“Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, but he’s actually playing nice today.”
“Sick Sheldon is playing nice?” Leonard mumbles something to, presumably, Raj, that elicits some kind of noise from the other man. “What kind of medication are you taking exactly?”
“Not enough, that’s for sure.” She eyes the clock and finds that she can’t remember when she took that stuff this morning. Which is, like, her entire problem. “And he’s feeling better anyways. He doesn’t even look like Rudolph anymore. Hang on a second.”
She places her palm over the receiver before he can reply and yells.
“Sheldon!”
“Dear lord Penny, it’s a small apartment.” He comes to stand at the end of the hallway as he talks, coming from his bedroom she guesses. She stares at him; she’s pretty sure he changed clothes and his hair is damp, though she can’t remember the shower running. When she doesn’t say anything, he raises his eyebrows, prompting, “Yes?”
“Yeah. When did I take that stuff this morning?”
“If by ‘that stuff’ you mean your medication, you took it at approximately eight forty this morning.” She frowns at him but it’s more in wonderment as to what the hell she was doing up at eight in the morning. And then she remembers the retching. “Give or take five minutes of course. I can go look it up in my log if you would prefer.”
“No, no, I’m good. Thanks.” She turns her attention back to the phone and hears his bedroom door close again fairly quickly. “Sorry. I was consulting the human day planner.”
“I’m surprised he’s even letting you stay there,” Leonard remarks.
“Yeah, me too, but the shock kind of wore off after the first night.”
“No, I mean since he’s better and you’re not.”
She hadn’t thought in those terms. “Hmm. I guess he really is playing nice.”
Leonard gives a short little laugh on the other end.
“Anyways, I should go.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you.”
She smiles but it’s for show and god knows that’s all for naught when the intended recipient is on the other end of the line. “I know.”
Penny ends the call that way and, really, she could win awards for how bad these phone calls have been ending lately. They’re awkward, mostly, because she doesn’t know what to say when she’s already had a similar conversation a few hours ago with him and he acts like he’s going to swoop in on a plane from Switzerland and rescue her from the fucking flu.
She sighs, rolls her eyes at no one and nothing, and then repeats something else. “Sheldon!”
The bedroom door opens along with his mouth. “Penny, as I just pointed out, this apartment is not - “
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.” She waves a hand, dismissively, and turns in her seat to face him once more. “So if you’re feeling better and I’m feeling somewhere between the same and crappier, why haven’t you kicked me out yet?”
He’s got an expression on his face that says he can’t believe that this is what she bothered him for. “I see no reason to.”
“Um, you fear sick people? And human contact. And breaks in routine.”
“I don’t fear any of those things; I merely exhibit a strong dislike for them.” He crosses his arms, straightening up even further if that was at all possible. “Furthermore, I have likely already had what you had, so you pose little to no threat to my health.”
He skips the other two items on the list. She notices.
“Was that all you needed?” He asks, rather impatiently, his question brought on by another lengthy silence on her end.
“Yeah,” she says, lying back down with her magazine. She listens to the door close for the second time and absolutely does not read into this. At all.
(Except maybe she kind of does).
---
He gets up right in the middle of dinner, Thai food and just the two of them because Howard had been warned about flu-ridden and irritable people and was just fine making plans with Bernadette.
“Sheldon?” She draws out the syllables in his name as she watches him grab something from the counter. It isn’t until he places it in front of her that she realizes it’s her meds again. Every six hours and, would you look at that, she must’ve taken it at two. “You made a schedule didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he replies, simply.
“Trying to get rid of me huh?” She asks, jokingly, and yet kind of honestly.
He gestures in the general direction of the tissue box and the tissue that sits in front of it. “I would much prefer to get rid of that.”
She smiles sheepishly and makes the journey to the trashcan with it before sitting back down, looking his way for approval. He nods, which is basically approval for Sheldon, and she thinks it’s kind of sweet.
---
It’s not so sweet when she gets woken up in the middle of the night.
Someone is prodding her shoulder, gently but kind of awkwardly, and she groans and rolls over in the direction of said prodding. Sheldon peers back at her, by the light of his green lantern thingie.
“Sheldon, what?” She mumbles, restraining any instinctual urge she may have to yell his ass out of the room for waking her up. Penny props herself up on her elbow and glances at the clock, groaning once she does. “It’s after two in the morning. What do you want?”
“It’s time for your medication.”
She stares at him, hoping he was joking but knowing that even Sheldon isn’t that stupid to wake her up for a reason that he doesn’t deem of extreme importance. Still. “You’re fucking kidding me right now?”
“Why would I joke about medication?” He looks positively affronted, at least she thinks he must because the green glow is just kind of making him look creepy.
“Ugh, fine. Just give it to me.”
She does not thank him on his way out.
---
She also doesn’t go right back to sleep.
No, she tosses and turns and acquires a headache and is just generally agitated because she was having a decent dream for once and now she’s wide awake.
So. If she’s not sleeping then neither is he.
“Penny,” he’s wary after the initial shock of being woken up. His voice sounds clear, not hoarse like hers, and she kind of hates him a little for being better. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah there’s a problem.” She eyes the wide open space between where he’s lying, perfectly straight, and the edge of the bed but does nothing about it. Yet. “You woke me up; now I can’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry but how is that my problem?”
“You woke me up.” She over-enunciates, conveniently leaving out the part where he did it for her own good, theoretically. It hinders her point. “That pretty much makes it your problem. Or your fault. Something. Anyways, in lieu of sleeping pills - and we don’t have any of those, because I checked - I figured you could either keep me occupied or bore me to sleep with physics talk.”
Apparently realizing that she has no plans to leave, he pushes himself up into a sitting position, up against the wall. The movement makes the whole situation feel less personal and it’s the push she needs to plop herself down on the side of the bed furthest from him, mirroring his position. He looks at her strangely but doesn’t pitch a fit about her being in his bed, in some form or another. She’s done this before; much like with his rule about people not being in his room, it’s become repetitive and futile, rules broken long ago. “I don’t excel in small talk, as you are aware.”
“So tell me physics stuff. Explain to me what Leonard’s seeing without us in Switzerland - the super collider thing.”
“Large Hadron Collider,” he corrects.
“Right. That.” She smiles in the darkness, quite proud of herself. If she gets him on this topic he’ll take endlessly and she’ll either gain some information so that she can look smarter about this stuff than she actually is in front of Leonard or it’ll be lights out for her - quite possibly both, in that order, which is frankly what she’s hoping for. “Tell me about that.”
Sheldon stops looking at her then, turning his attention somewhere towards the wall - he’s not focused but rather lost in his thoughts, organizing and processing. She’s familiar with this and she settles back to absorb whatever he manages to say in plain English. “The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator, tasked with colliding opposing particle beams of - Penny,” he stops suddenly, his head snapping towards her, “I can’t tell you about this.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Why not? Don’t you know like everything about…everything that has to do with science?”
“It’s far from a question of intelligence.” She thinks if he were slightly less agitated right now he’d be doing that little I’m-mocking-you laugh. “You stated that your plan is for me to, and I quote, bore you to sleep with physics talk.”
She latches on to the reasoning for his pause in about half a second. “Sheldon, I will not fall asleep in this bed. I promise.”
His eyes narrow, doubt coloring in his expression.
“I would pinky swear you but you probably don’t even know what that means, so you’re going to have to settle for my word.”
There’s still some hesitation but he seems to settle after a few seconds, clearing his throat. “As I was saying, it’s tasked with colliding opposing particle beams of protons - “
---
In the morning, she wakes up under the blankets of a bed that is definitely not Leonard’s.
It is empty.
Stumbling out into the hallway, she finds Sheldon up and about, although he pauses in front of the fridge when he sees her. She knows the admonishment is coming before his mouth even opens. She surrenders.
“You feel asleep in my bed, Penny.”
“I know.” She tries for a bright smile. “But I slept well.”
Turns out he can do the whole fake how-nice-for-you smile in a way that is not, in fact, creepy. She has a feeling it’s going to be her being nice to him today, instead of the other way around.
---
Her cell rings just after noon; she doesn’t pick it up, mostly because her hands are occupied and Sheldon’s closer to it.
That doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.
“Hello Leonard,” Sheldon answers, even tone not at all belying the smug look he’s giving her. She waves the knife in her hand in his direction, a slicing movement, and narrows her eyes. He’s lucky that she’s feeling better.
“Sheldon,” Leonard’s voice is instantly suspicious, “why are you answering Penny’s phone?”
“Penny is currently indisposed; if you would like to leave a message for her I would be happy to relay it to her when her task is completed.”
“Sheldon,” she hisses from the kitchen. He doesn’t flinch.
“What - what are you talking about?” Leonard sputters. “Put Penny on the phone.”
“I’m sorry but I just can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Penny is experiencing the meaning of an eye for an eye.” Sheldon explains. “She inconvenienced me last night and thus I am doing the same to her this afternoon.”
“Oh come on, what could she have possibly done?”
“She slept in my bed.”
Leonard’s voice raises to such a degree that Penny can hear him, faintly, all the way from the other side of the room. “She did what?”
“Sheldon!” She shrieks, setting the knife down and making a grab for the phone; he lets her have it, rather than experience her hogtieing and castrating skills first hand, but her finger hits the end button by accident mid-grab and then the connection is gone. “Sheldon, you can’t say things like that.”
“Like what? I told him the truth.”
“Yeah, one that he’s going to read into. A lot.” She dials Leonard again, hoping to do some damage control, and the glower she gives Sheldon from where she’s standing, one leg more or less poised right between his knees, prevents him from trying anything. The phone rings but it goes to voicemail before anyone answers. “Dammit, why won’t he pick up?”
“Considering the amount of static on the other end, it’s very likely that he is walking somewhere and lost reception.” Sheldon oh so helpfully informs her. At least it isn’t ‘he’s ignoring you’. “You should try back later. In the meantime - “ he gestures the way of the kitchen.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she replies, with a shake of her head, marching back over to the counter. “Split pea soup with little frankfurters and homemade croutons,” she mutters, not at all believing that this is really her life right now. “You’re not even that sick anymore.”
---
“Okay, so you’re right.” She admits, setting her phone down on the coffee table and turning her attention to the tall man in front of the computer. “He had no reception, he wasn’t ignoring me, just a little confused.” Sheldon continues to stare at the screen and makes no move to acknowledge her. “Okay, I said you’re right and you don’t have anything to say since when?”
He does not turn but there’s a vein throbbing that tells her he’s just intensely focused. “I already knew I was right.”
“Humble, aren’t you?” Penny doesn’t get an answer to that either and when she cranes her neck she can get a perfect view over his shoulder of the Tetris game that he’s playing. “Level fourteen. Nice.”
When he doesn’t answer that either, she rises from the couch and makes herself comfortable right there on the edge of his desk. She isn’t wearing old pajamas today, instead having switched to a tank and flowered sweatpants, her hair straight and falling down her shoulders instead of in a messy bun. She feels better and with feeling better comes her confidence so that instead of throwing glares or mostly witty one-liners in his direction, she can slide so that her leg is just brushing against his. The movement catches his attention and his fingers twitch over the mouse.
“That’s never going to stop bugging you is it?” Penny observes, making no move to extricate herself. His hand settles and he keeps up with the little odd-shaped blocks on the screen, the level changing to fifteen. “You let your mom and your sister hug you. I mean, it’s awkward but still.”
“I have also hugged you twice now, Penny. Not to mention numerous liberties I allow you to take. I seem to remember you being drugged and very hands on not all that long ago.” Her cheeks flush from the little snippets of that night that she actually can remember. Mostly she remembers the round, the way she kept prodding him, the way he acquiesced. She has no memory of the ride home or falling asleep but the song anchors her in that moment.
She balances her foot on the seat now, right in the space between the armrest and his ass and he stops bothering to react, instead leaving his eyes affixed to the screen. It’s as close to acceptance as you can possibly get with him, becoming part of his background instead of his latest nuisance.
(Penny wonders about the kind of person who could overcome even that, who could break through and become the thing focused on, who can force his work and his love of science into the backseat; Penny wonders if such a person even exists.)
---
After dinner, she finds that she’s had enough one-on-one time with Sheldon. The fact that that didn’t happen sooner is nothing short of a miracle.
“I think I’m going to head home,” she says, her hands full of blankets and the clothes she changed out of when she showered this morning.
Sheldon’s voice is entirely neutral when he replies, “Alright.”
She stares at him, waiting for him to say something about how he thought she’d never leave. It sounds like -- something he would do - hell, it is something he has done. Except he doesn’t. He goes back to his email. He’s going back to work tomorrow and she’s called in to the Cheesecake Factory to let them know that, while she wouldn’t be there tomorrow, she’d be back before the end of the week; it effectively marks the end of their never-ending vacation from reality and while it wasn’t exactly enjoyable, she’s fairly sure that at least half of it contained some of the few times in recent memory where she could actually imagine a reality in which living with Sheldon might not be as trying as Leonard tends to make it out to be.
Nothing ever comes and she heads across the hall without anything in the way of goodbye or goodnight - this will, after all, be a two or three trip ordeal in order to get the rest of her stuff back into her own apartment - getting as far as her door before she digs her keys out of the pocket of her pants. The key that isn’t there. And the door that certainly isn’t unlocked.
Sheldon’s looking right at the door when she walks through it again, as if expecting a quick return. “You don’t happen to know where my key is, do you?”
“No.”
“Um, okay.” She refrains from any sense of panic she may suddenly feel. Maybe she left it in her apartment the last time she was over there, looking for a change of clothes and that book she’d kept picking up and putting back down after the first ten pages for about seven months now - turns out, that book hadn’t been as bad as the first chapter had indicated. “Okay. This is fine. I just need the spare key you guys keep.”
“Look in the key bowl,” he instructs her, nodding towards the bowl that she already knew from her vantage point contained only one set of keys: his own.
Calm, she tells herself, just stay calm. “And if they’re not in the key bowl?”
“Then they’re not in the apartment,” he replies, elaborating before she can ask him to. “Specifically, Leonard must have once again opted not to follow proper protocol and left them at your apartment, rendering them useless.”
“Wait, there’s protocol for this?”
“Yes. Generally one makes sure of the return of said spare keys to their designated place so as to avoid situations like this.” His fingers pause over the keyboard for as long as it takes to get that sentence out. Just. “You’re going to need to call the landlord.”
“Yeah, thanks, I’m familiar with this.” She almost aims a poignant look in his direction before realizing that it might not look so great when coupled with the next words out of her mouth. “Sheldon, I’m going to have to - “
“I’m aware.”
And that’s how Penny comes to spend four straight nights with Sheldon.
---
“Sheldon?”
There’s no answer other than running water from the sink in the bathroom, audible through the cracked door. She peeks just enough that she can tell he’s only brushing his teeth before she goes any further.
“Sheldon?” She pushes open the door halfway and he narrows his eyes at her, a scowl making itself known through the foam from the toothpaste at the corners of his lips. Without trepidation, she holds up the shirt that she’s rescued from his drawer. “Can I borrow this?”
“That’s my shirt.”
“Yeah, I know. Can I borrow it?”
“That’s my shirt,” he repeats, a record that can’t stop skipping.
“I get that Sheldon; you said it twice already.” She allows the full weight of the exasperation she’s feeling color her voice. Sheldon doesn’t understand a good half of the emotions she regularly cycles through, but anything in the area of mad or frustrated he seems to pick up on pretty quickly. Survival instinct, she thinks. “Look, I can’t get any of my stuff and all of my clothes that I have here are dirty. Yours aren’t.”
“Perhaps you should give Leonard’s a try. I’m given to understand that traditionally, when spending the night without an extra change of clothes, the girlfriend helps herself to the boyfriend’s clothes.”
He has to have gotten that from television. Somewhere. Probably something that she made him watch. She watches him put his toothbrush back under the UV light and manages not to laugh or shake her head. “Sweetie, Leonard’s about a half inch shorter than me - it doesn’t really work that way with us.”
Sheldon puzzles over this for a moment. Then, “I recall you dancing in my kitchen in a men’s button down.”
“A men’s button down that wasn’t Leonard’s.”
“Then whose was it?”
“It wasn’t Leonard’s,” she reiterates, this time with far more force. She honestly can’t remember whose it -was, just that it was some ex-boyfriend’s and he left it at her apartment and never took it back - she wears it sometimes, an old memento and Leonard hadn’t even asked. Either his perception of their respective heights and sizes is completely off or he just preferred not to acknowledge it at all. “Sheldon, seriously, my asking you was less of a question and more of a courtesy.”
“Why would you bother with that if you weren’t looking for my input?”
“I don’t know - I was trying to be nice and a good guest and forgot that you don’t really care about things like courtesy.”
“Well you’d do well to remember that for next time. It would save us all a lot of time and energy.”
“So I can wear your shirt?”
“You said I had no say.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
He whirls on her. “Penny, I - “
“Never mind,” she says, realizing that this can only go in circles from here on out, holding up a hand and heading towards Leonard’s bedroom so she can change.
---
“Hey Sheldon.”
“Please tell me that you aren’t after my pants as well.”
She giggles, outside of his bedroom door, seeing him sitting up in his darkened room. “No, I’m not.”
“That’s certainly a relief.”
With any other guy, she’s fairly sure they’d be ecstatic that she was trying to get them out of their pants. Under any circumstances, literally or figuratively. “I just - “ and she knows that with this much amusement in her voice, the sentiment will mean a little less than she intends to, so she takes a breath and shifts back to something resembling serious. “I just wanted to thank you.”
“For what?” His head moves, like he’s looking for her, and she steps into his room then. Again. She tiptoes until she’s at the side of his bed, same as last night, and suppresses a smile when he jumps in reaction to the shifting of weight on his bed. “Penny.”
“For letting me stay here and being nice about it at least half of the time.” She leans back against the headboard; this is becoming far too familiar and yet she’s strangely ceased to care. “I know I kind of invited myself but you didn’t have to go with it - I know you hate your routine getting all out of whack or whatever. So thanks.”
“I was already sick, therefore my routine was already altered.” She hates when he does that, when he rationalizes things out to such a degree that it strips his actions of any discernable meaning on an emotional level. And then, out of nowhere, a little hope makes its way into the equation. “And you’re very welcome, Penny.”
The surprise sincerity of his statement washes over her in a wave that she isn’t likely to soon forget. She lets herself bask in that, for the moment, that tiny sliver of humanity that he tends to show only to her, stopping just short of the point where the silence becomes something awkward. “Now what were you telling me about the collider before I fell asleep. I think I might actually be able to understand more of it now.”
---
Penny wakes to a hand on her shoulder, a prodding that differs from the last time she remembers, a not-so-distant time ago. She tries to stretch her legs out, kick at the sheets, before her knee bumps into something hard and she discovers that the sheets are in fact just one of her spare blankets from her apartment and she isn’t in anything even resembling a bed.
“Penny,” a voice that is distinctly not Sheldon’s whispers, causing the world to swim back into living color as she opens her eyes and finds herself staring up into Leonard’s.
“What?” The first thing that strikes her - you know, other than the fact that Leonard’s home and the sun isn’t even out yet, glaring through the windows - is that her neck hurts. It’s the damn chair in their living room and she vaguely remembers collapsing into it when she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find that she’d fallen asleep in Sheldon’s bed again, forcing him onto the couch without alternative. He never slept in Leonard’s room - why, she had no idea. She hadn’t fallen asleep with this blanket though, that’s for certain, which means Sheldon must have draped it over her. Something tightens in her chest as she sits up fully, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. “Sheldon?”
“No, it’s me. It’s Leonard.” He replies, misunderstanding her. She gets her answer nonetheless, finding Sheldon passed out cold on the couch, his own blanket covering him. He hadn’t gone back to bed.
“Hey,” she manages, as quietly as possible, trying not to disturb him. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah,” he replies, offering no further explanation. She doesn’t press for it either. “What are you doing out here?”
“I locked myself out and I ended up having to - “ she sighs, thinking that the rest of this tale is just a little too complicated to explain, made out of subtleties and far too much background information. “You know what, it’s not important. You should get some sleep; I’m sure that was a long flight.”
“Yeah. I didn’t sleep on it either. Raj kept chattering away.” He seems mildly annoyed by that fact; jetlag can make anyone irritable after all. His hand finds hers and he moves as if to pull her out of the chair as he turns towards the hallway. “Come to bed with me.”
“Actually,” she pauses, glancing at the man on the couch who hadn’t left her, who managed to put himself second for a while, and finds that she isn’t getting up for anything right now. “You know what, I’m comfortable right now. You should get some sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
She shifts, pulling the blanket and dislodging it enough that he gets a two-second long perfect view of the logo on the front of the short sleeve t-shirt she’d stolen from Sheldon.
“Is that - are you wearing Sheldon’s shirt?”
“Goodnight, Leonard,” she says, choosing not to address either one of his questions. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He must disappear into his room after that because she doesn’t hear another word from him, shutting her eyes and trying to orient herself better to the chair.
On an exhale, she whispers, “Goodnight, Sheldon” and drifts off back to sleep.
---
fin.