damalurbackup

TITLE: A Day in the Life
CHARACTERS: Sheldon/Penny
RATING: R for sexuality
NOTES: I owe a huge thank-you & ♥ to the wonderful

htbthomas for beta reading. Without her help, Wolowitz would have died from eating peanut sauce! This story was written mostly because I wanted to see Penny and Sheldon in an established relationship, but also because the Beatles are awesome and because I'm a sucker for curtain!fic.
SUMMARY: March 9th, 2011, is just another day in the life for Penny and her roommate, Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

Outtake | The Universe and You | A Day in the Life | Life, in a Nutshell (Pt 2) (Pt 3) | Interlude | Life after Causal Relations | The Role of a Lifetime

EXPANDED NOTES: The Furious Theatre Company, Lewis & Clark Middle School, the Wolf Prize in Physics, and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft all really exist. Larry is based on the owner of my LCS (hi, Mark!), who is the nicest and least creepy comics seller I know. According to Wikipedia, there really was a study done on tomato soup and sperm count. And Final Frontier really is the worst Trek movie; I'm not gonna say it's because William Shatner directed it...but yeah, it's probably because William Shatner directed it.

Also, does anybody else have trouble with formatting LJ posts in Word, or is that just me? My short and long dashes get all jumbled up and my italics try to disappear.

NOTES FOR THE COMIC BOOK FANS: I can't predict what's going to happen in 2011, but since this is my fanfic I'm going to pretend that Joe Quesada will be out and Marvel Comics will have a new editor-in-chief by then. Under direction of said new editor-in-chief, Steve Rogers will be resurrected, One More Day/Brand New Day will be reversed, and the Young Avengers will get their own ongoing title. You don't really need to know that for the story, but there it is anyway. :) And okay, yes, my Marvel prejudice is showing, even though I know Sheldon wears a lot more DC shirts. But Maaarvel! Also, there are now apparently multiple Iron Man titles again.

SONG UPLOADS: These are in order and hosted on MediaFire. I didn't have a particular scheme in mind when I chose which songs to use; think impressionistic, not narrative.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

"'Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics,’" he says. "'I can assure you mine are still greater.'"

“Huh?”

“A quote by Albert Einstein. It illustrates the disparity between the respective mathematical obstacles we face.”

Penny sighs. "That's...fantastic, Sheldon, but it does not help me figure out how much money I need to put in this envelope."

He peers over her shoulder at the ticket order form flattened against the counter. "How many people are attending?"

"You, Leonard, Carrie, Raj - Howard can't make it, he has a thing - um, maybe Grace from work? And I don't know if Leonard's bringing a date."

"Do you not receive a discount? The Furious Theatre Company is quite well known. One would think - "

"I get the first two tickets free," she interrupts. "And I think a fifteen percent discount on everything after that?" She knew she should have checked with somebody. Maybe she could call Nick or Audrey? Or the director - the director would know.

Sheldon sets his box of cereal down. "I don't understand why you're so bent on 'treating' everyone," he says, "but assuming that Leonard does bring along an escort, the total is one-hundred two dollars."

She almost says, "Really?" but she knows better than to question him on anything regarding math. "Thanks, Sheldon," she says instead.

"You're welcome," he replies. "And now that that taxing bit of calculation has been concluded, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to move."

"What?"

"You're standing in the spot where I pour my cereal."

That's about how life with Sheldon goes.

-

She isn't exactly sure how she ended up living with Sheldon. It's not like she just woke up one morning in bed with him, but the whole thing sort of...snuck up on her. Leonard moved out to try living with Leslie, an arrangement which failed after a matter of weeks, but he must have liked living closer to CalTech or the lack of Sheldon or something, because he'd never moved back in. Somehow she'd found herself driving Sheldon to work every morning; in return he cleaned her apartment and tolerated it when she chose Sweet Home Alabama when it was her pick for movie night. Before she knew it they were doing their laundry and grocery shopping together. It didn't occur to her until after she'd already moved in how eerily domestic their lives were.

She was watching him fold socks a few months after Leonard moved out when he'd first made noises about a new roommate. "The rent isn't exorbitant," he had said, "but it really is more than I prefer to spend on a monthly basis."

"You seriously want a new roommate?" she asked, and drummed her heels against the dryer.

He sighed, either in exasperation at the prospect of altering his living arrangement or at the way her blouse stubbornly refused to fit symmetrically on his folding board. "It certainly is a possibility."

She turned a thought over as she beat out Ringo's drum solo from "The End" with her feet. Lately she'd cut back on her hours at The Cheesecake Factory, after she'd picked up a couple of low-paying acting gigs in a row; she was getting more parts, but the money wasn't exactly rolling in. "Hey, Sheldon," she said. "I could move in with you."

He glanced up at her, startled, but apparently the proposition passed some sort of internal quality inspection, because his eyebrows lifted. "That would be acceptable," he said finally.

So that's how she ended up living with Sheldon. His apartment was bigger than hers, so she moved in with him instead of the other way around. He's actually a decent roommate, for the most part; he's certainly neat enough, he doesn't make her uncomfortable when she walks from her bedroom to the bathroom wrapped only in a towel, and he retreats to his room with minimal protest when her friends come over. And she's got six glow-in-the-dark fish for pets now, in a tank in the living room. It's a great conversation starter, especially when she tells people they're named after the kids on The Brady Bunch.

Living with Sheldon snuck up on her, but sleeping with him hit her between the eyes like a sucker-punch from Beth Anne Middler, the giantess of Lewis & Clark Middle School. If someone asked her to explain the events leading up to their first night together, she wouldn't be able to string together a coherent story if she were offered a million dollars and the lead in the next Steven Spielberg film. She can conclude, however, that 1) she didn't make the first move and 2) experience doesn't count for anything.

Privately, she can also conclude that, somewhere between the time he first broke in to clean her apartment and the time they first woke up in bed together, she'd fallen in love with him. She isn't ready to admit that to anyone, though.

Especially when she hasn't found the words to tell Sheldon yet.

-

When Penny wakes up on the morning of March 9th, 2011, she's alone in her bed. This, in itself, is not an unusual occurrence; she and Sheldon aren't quite to the point of sharing a room yet, and even if they end up together most nights, he still gets up at an ungodly hour. When she rolls over and blearily focuses on her alarm, Hello Kitty tells her it's 6:18.

She muffles a yawn against her pillow and considers. She could stay in bed; she doesn't have to be up for another hour, she's buried in a wonderful cocoon of blankets, and the place Sheldon's much larger body recently vacated is radiating warmth. Or. Or she could get up, put on a smile and her tennis shoes, and go be aerobically fit. It's a tough decision, but she has a pretty important audition coming up soon, so with a great deal of effort she forces her eyelids open and throws back the covers.

She finds a pair of running shorts and a sweatshirt without too much effort, but her running shoes seem to have disappeared. She checks her closet, gets on her hands and knees and peers under the bed, and then checks her closet again. No dice. Maybe they're by the door...?

The tile in the bathroom is cool against her bare feet. She scrubs a washcloth over her face, considers leaving it in the sink, and tosses it in the laundry hamper instead; leaving used towels laying around is not the best way to start the day when living with Dr. Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D. Her hair's arrayed in a wild halo around her face, so she takes the time to wrestle it into submission and pull it back into a ponytail.

Sheldon's rattling around in the kitchen, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a vintage Spider-Man shirt and looking way, way too awake. He'd started these early morning runs after a visit from Leonard's mother. At first it had completely baffled all of them when he started performing regular physical activity - Raj had been so shocked he'd actually spoken in her presence - but when she'd confronted Sheldon about it he'd offered a perfectly logical explanation. "Dr. Hofstadter brought to my attention of series of studies on the link between physical activity and productivity," he'd told her. "Regular physical exertion combats a variety of chronic diseases, improves cognition and memory, and stimulates brain cell development, among other things. I can send you a copy of the relevant research, if you'd like."

"No, thanks," she'd said, but he sent her a follow-up e-mail anyway, complete with several lengthy and technical attachments. She skimmed the better part of two files; at the very least she could re-classify his workouts from aberrant Sheldon behavior to typical Sheldon behavior. This was less along the lines of "Sheldon lets me sit in his spot on the couch" and more along the lines of "Sheldon keeps his toothbrush in a sealed case under a UV light."

And maybe what he'd said kinda stuck with her, too, because now on the mornings when she can haul herself out of bed in time she joins him for a three-point-two-six mile jog. She doesn't feel so guilty when she brings home an extra cheesecake from work, either, which is a definite benefit. Not to mention the rockin' abs.

"Penny," Sheldon says. "Penny. Are you awake?" She's been spazzed out and staring at the red of his shirt for the past three minutes.

"Yes," she says, and slumps into a barstool. "Kind of."

"If you set yourself a more regular schedule - " he begins, and then takes in the heavy lids on her eyes and sighs. He's learned better than to try to talk to her before seven. Instead a sets a glass of incandescent blue water precisely in front of her. "Drink this."

She groans and wraps a hand around the glass. It's a concoction that he designed to balance her electrolytes or something like that, but it tastes unexpectedly like raspberries, so. He watches until she's drained the last of the stuff and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. That earns her a disapproving glare, but she stares fuzzily back until he takes the glass from her and rinses it out in the sink.

He goes to his desk and makes some notes on a clipboard - date, time, his weight, the weather conditions, she's not sure exactly what, but every couple of weeks he prints out a graph and presents it to her with a flourish. She follows him over and just kind of stands until he looks up from his notes and tells her gently, "Penny, your shoes are by the door. Why don't you put them on?"

She yawns at him.

Sure enough, though, her shoes are by the door, laid out with a pair of clean socks. By the time she finishes lacing up he's ready to go. She snags her iPod as she follows him out the door.

Sheldon, of course, takes the time to stop and stretch on the bottom staircase, but Penny just jams her earbuds in and starts scrolling through playlists. Okay, maybe she watches Sheldon's ass. He'll never be exactly buff, but he's tall and lean and he's gotten sort of toned and Penny's allowed to appreciate that, especially since she's his...not girlfriend. Lover, maybe? No, she decides, she's earned the title of girlfriend. They've been sleeping together for over a year, after all, and they know all each other's co-workers. She's definitely his girlfriend.

He doesn't say much when they're running - it's one of the few times when he willingly shuts up - so she puts her iPod on shuffle and cranks up the volume. "When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide," screams Paul McCartney, and she lengthens her stride just a little and Sheldon shortens his and they fall into an easy rhythm. They run the same path every time, point-thirteen miles to the park, three laps around, and then point-thirteen miles back. On mornings when she comes along, Sheldon doesn't protest if she takes him a different way to work.

The sun's just coming up, tingeing the sky with pinks and golds and soft blues; she feels like they're the only two people in the world.

-

When they get back she lets him have the first shower. He still finds sweating distasteful, even if he has lowered his risk of developing diabetes fifty to sixty percent. She sits and sips tea and watches her fish while she waits for her turn. Marcia and Peter are nosing around the plastic castle. Sheldon insists that Marcia is, in fact, a male fish, but Penny doesn't see how he can tell the difference anyway.

The shower shuts off and Penny stands and deposits her mug in the sink. Sheldon emerges from the bathroom exactly three minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist and a bundle of clothes under one arm. In a move calculated to infuriate him, Penny positions herself in front of his bedroom door.

She grins at him and his lips quirk and he says, "Pardon me," politely, like they haven't done this a thousand times before.

"No," she says.

"No?"

"No," she repeats, and one of his eyebrows rises in incredulity. Before he can retort she wraps a hand around his neck, yanks him down to her level, and kisses him. He braces a hand against the doorframe and leans into her, warm and clean; her fingers tangle in the wet hair at the nape of his neck.

Some time later, he lifts his head from her lips. "You haven't showered," he points out, "and I'm getting you wet. This is not a conducive arrangement."

"And yet you have me pinned against your door," Penny says dryly.

He snorts. "Yes, well, I find that occasionally biological imperative overrides even my higher cognitive functions."

"Aw, Sheldon." Penny pats him on the cheek. "I like making out with you too." Then she ducks under his arm and flees to the bathroom before he starts lecturing her about pheromones or schedule disruptions or God knows what else.

-

When she finishes her shower fifteen minutes later, Sheldon is sitting on the couch waiting for her. She throws on some old clothes and snags her keys from the bowl by the door. They'd changed some things when she moved in, but the key bowl and the red couch are permanent fixtures. "Ready?" she asks.

"I am," he says, and stands. He's wearing a dull tan jacket that brings to mind seventy-year-old geezers gathered at a VFW hall, but at least she's talked him into wearing button-down shirts a couple of days each week. Today's model is a muted blue, buttoned all the way up to his throat and emblazoned with a small Starfleet insignia on the pocket. The Starfleet insignia, at least, she can overlook.

"Come here," she orders, and when he just tilts his head and stares at her she shakes her head. "Sheldon," she says, "sweetie. You cannot button your shirt like that."

"Then how am I to button my shirt?" he asks querulously, but he comes over to stand in front of her anyway.

"Not like that." She undoes his top button and the one under it, then steps back to consider him. "Do you have any other jackets? What about that brown one I got you for Christmas?"

"Must you incessantly inquire as to the state of my wardrobe?" he says, so she fixes him with a Look and he crumbles like a cookie cake. "Oh, very well - that jacket is in the laundry basket. Wolowitz spilled curry sauce on me. I gave him a strike," he adds, as if that settles the matter.

"Oh, well," she says, with a hint of a pout, "no brown jacket today." She straightens his collar and glances up; he's staring at her lips, completely transfixed. "Honey," she says, "your biological imperative is showing."

He folds his arms across his chest and says nothing. Point Penny!, she thinks, and leads him out the door, fighting the little fits of laughter that keep bubbling up inside her.

-

They talk about her play on the drive to CalTech. It opens in two and a half weeks, and Penny's already starting to get nervous. Her part's pretty small, but the company she's with now is probably the most prestigious in Pasadena.

"You know all your lines, and the director seems pleased with your performance," Sheldon points out as he settles his messenger bag between his legs. "There is no logical basis for your anxiety."

"I'm nervous anyway," she says. "And being on stage isn't like being in front of a camera. If I screw up, I can't have them stop and start the scene over."

"You've expressed that you like acting on stage better, though."

"I do," she says. "I like performing in front of an audience, and there's something almost...magical about being on stage like that."

"Ah. I understand. I feel the same way when contemplating the dimensionality of M-theory."

"Something like that," Penny agrees. "I think." She swerves to miss a cat; Sheldon clutches at the dashboard, but doesn't say anything. "Doesn't stop me from being nervous, though."

"You'll be wonderful," he tells her quietly.

She feels herself flush, and manages to avoid turning her head and staring at him only by focusing on the speedometer. "Thank you. I hope so," she returns, equally quiet. There are moments when he's a pretentious ass, when she wants to smack him, but moments like this remind her why she - that she - well, they remind her, and they're occurring with a disturbing regularity. He can be sweet; he is sweet, he just doesn't always know how to express it.

After a few moments she breaks the silence. "So how're things going at work?"

Sheldon looks out the window. "Doctor Gablehauser is being difficult again. That man wouldn't know genius if it stood in front of him and demanded access to an open science grid computer. Which I have."

"You know why he's doing that, don't you?"

"No. I can think of no rational reason why he would do so. I even avoided the subjects of his inferior intellect and his trite and frankly plagiaristic research when making my request."

"He's envious, sweetie," she says, and yeah, maybe her smile's a little bit wicked, but she hasn't liked Dr. Gablehauser since the department Christmas party two years ago when he got drunk and called Sheldon a social maladroit.

"Of my work?"

"Of you. You just won the Wolf Prize, the Dutch - Deutsch - "

"Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft - "

" - is flying you in to Germany as the highlight lecturer this spring, and Gablehauser is feeling threatened. Especially since, y'know, I've been helping you make nice with the higher-ups."

"I knew that my research was of a thoroughly superior caliber, but I hadn't realized that he felt I was threatening his position." She can practically hear the gears grinding in his head. "Interesting."

"It probably doesn't help that you insult him so much," she says, and then grins. "Even if it is true."

"I will forever be plagued by lesser minds," Sheldon sighs. "I suppose I could have Koothrappali ask him. He likes Koothrappali."

"Because Raj doesn't insult him," she can't help repeating. He doesn't deign to reply, and as she pulls into the lot she gives herself another mental tally. His university parking tag is a permanent resident in her car, so she parks in the front row without thinking twice.

"You're coming in?" he asks.

"Yep. I meant to call Leonard yesterday to ask if he was bringing a date to the opening, but," she shrugs, "I forgot."

He waits as she fumbles with her keys, and then they fall in step together. "I believe Leonard is, as they say, 'making another go of it' with Leslie Winkle."

"Oh," Penny says, and wrinkles her nose.

Sheldon opens the door for her, and he must catch her expression as she passes him. "You object?"

"Not really," she says. "I'm not in a blood feud with her the way you are. She's just - " Penny looks around and lowers her voice. "She's kind of abrasive."

His eyes gleam. "To say the least," he agrees. "Although I eventually accepted her presence in Leonard's life, now that I have a...more mutually satisfying relationship paradigm," he says this with a furtive, sideways glance at the top of her head, "I do not find her treatment of Leonard..."

"Nice? Considerate?" Penny offers. "Seriously. I know what you mean. She jerks him around like - " Wolowitz rounds the corner, and Penny shuts her mouth with an audible click.

Howard slides his hands into his pockets and bobs his head at them. "Sheldon. Penny!" He rattles off a foreign string of words; Penny's pretty sure it's French, although she thinks she caught a Klingon word or two in there.

"Hi, Howard," she says. "Have you seen Leonard around?"

"He wasn't in his office earlier," Howard says, and adds for good measure, "my goddess in blue jeans." She maybe feels Sheldon twitch a little bit beside her.

"Could you tell him I'm looking for him?"

"But of course," he says. "We on for Halo tonight?"

She doesn't have to look at Sheldon to know he's rolling his eyes. "Of course we're quote-on-for-Halo-unquote," he says. "It's Wednesday. Wednesday night is Halo night."

"Alrighty then," Howard says. He gives them a nod and a wave and sets off down the hallway. Obtuse and chauvinistic he may be at times, but she's got to hand it to Howard - he's got the strut down pat.

"May we?" Sheldon huffs, and starts to steer her towards his office with a splayed hand on her back.

"Why, Sheldon Cooper," she says to him under her breath. "Are you jealous?"

"Of Wolowitz?" He digs in his pocket for his keys and unlocks the door. "Don't be absurd."

"Uh huh," she says. "You know, I'm surprised none of them have figured the you-and-me thing out. We're not exactly trying to hide."

Sheldon hisses derisively. "They refuse to accept the obvious empirical evidence. It's unbecoming of a scientist."

"Maybe," she says. "But I also know for a fact that they took turns singing 'Soft Kitty' to you when you had that ear infection in 2006. Oh! You're reading it." There's a well-thumbed copy of Pride and Prejudice sitting on his desk. She recognizes it because it's her copy; he'd lost a bet to her last Halo night and this was his forfeit. She crosses the room and settles herself on his desk, cradling the book with both hands.

"I suppose it's not completely lacking in literary merit." That's about the best she's going to get out of him, but at least he's sticking to his end of the bet. He deposits his bag neck next to his chair and hangs his coat behind the door. She catches hold of him as he passes her. "Yes?"

"Hold still for a minute," she says. "And put your arms out." He extends his arms obediently, and she unbuttons his cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to a point just below his elbows. "Humor me, okay?"

She can read in his face that there's easily a dozen things he wants to say to that, but instead he subsides with only a, "Very well." Once she's finished he takes his place behind his desk and gives her a nudge. She scoots over a few inches, clearing his workspace, and he begins to sort through a stack of papers. She likes watching him work; he's so intently focused, so completely in his element, that she can't help but be held rapt. He may be a bundle of neuroses, but he has such intensity and - she hesitates to think it - such passion for the things he truly cares about. And he has these hands, long, strong hands with clever, sensitive fingers -

There's a knock from the open door. Leonard's standing there, a puzzled expression on his face; she realizes it's probably because she's sitting on Sheldon's desk, but she doesn't budge. "Hey, Leonard," she says.

"Hi, Penny." He hesitates, then comes in. "Howard mentioned you wanted to see me?"

"Just curious if you're going to bring a date to the big opening," she says. "I want to turn in my ticket order at the rehearsal tomorrow."

"No," he says. "I mean, I was going to ask Leslie, but I think things are over between us for good. We just want different things in a relationship, you know?" He shoves his hands in his pockets, and she has to resist the urge to go over and pat him on the head. Leonard always makes her feel like that - like she wants to take him home and feed him and protect him from the world, because he tries so hard and it's not his fault that he hasn't met the right woman yet.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Maybe it's for the best? You will meet the right person someday - I mean, geez, I must have gone through a dozen guys."

"But you still haven't met the right person," Leonard says, "and if you haven't, what choice do I have?" He gives her a hangdog look from behind his glasses; she's sad to see him so down, but at the same time it's nice that he seems to have given up on his infatuation with her.

Sheldon makes a scathing noise in the back of his throat. She can't get at him to kick, so she settles for grabbing a handful of pencils out of his desk organizer - they're arranged by lead hardness, then length - and scattering them across his desk.

"You've only really dated three people, though," she says, her attention half on Leonard and half on the muscle ticking in Sheldon's jaw. "You just need to get out there and show the world the real Leonard Hofstadter.

"You think so?" Leonard asks, and smiles hopefully at her.

"I know so." She smiles back and wonders what Sheldon would do if she mixed up his paperclips and his thumbtacks. Baiting him is so much fun sometimes -

Her hand's halfway across his desk when he fixes her with a glare. "If you're quite finished with your little tête-à-tête," he says, "some of are actually trying to work."

Penny hops down from his desk. "And that's my cue. I'm working a short shift at the Factory today, so I'll get you at...four thirty-ish? We can stop by Comics Cave on the way home."

"And the dry cleaner's," Sheldon reminds her.

"Oh! Dry cleaner. Good thinking. Where did I put my ticket?"

"You left it in the glove compartment of your car."

"Oh yeah. Thanks, Sheldon. See you later?"

He holds her gaze a split second longer than is customary between two people who are merely friends, then waves a languid hand in dismissal. "Goodbye, Penny. Leonard."

"C'mon, Leonard," she says, and tows him out of Sheldon's office. Sheldon's already buried in his calculations again, but before she shuts his door she makes a point of stage-whispering, "Gosh, some people are actually trying to work."

-

She nearly rear-ends some fresh-faced undergrad on her way out of the parking lot. That gets her to thinking about school; she's been toying with the idea of picking up some theater classes at one of the local colleges. Pasadena is rife with universities, and she doesn't think she'd have too hard of a time convincing one of them to let her into some night classes. If the acting-thing doesn't pan out, she has a vague idea that she could teach theater and maybe English at a high school. She likes kids, anyway.

The radio squeals when she turns it on, so she fiddles with the dial while trying to keep her attention on the road. She ought to get a car with controls built into the steering wheel. Or she could just ask Sheldon to build her some sort of remote; he could probably make it so that some guy in China could drive her car on their computer.

She flips past talk radio, more talk radio, the eternally dull religious talk radio, and finally settles on a station that seems to be playing an eclectic mix of modern pop and classic rock. Then, just because she can, she starts singing along. She's resigned herself to never getting hired for her vocal skills, but by the time she pulls into her parking spot at home she's wailing, "It's such a feeling that my love I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't HIIIDE!" at the top of her lungs. Mrs. Grossinger's unloading groceries from her car and she gives Penny an odd look, but Penny just smiles blissfully and starts the long trek up to the third floor.

Her shift doesn't start until eleven, so she's going to take an hour or so to go over her script again in case she's forgotten something. It's chilly inside; she keeps it cool, in part because she just likes it that way and in part because it's funny to watch Sheldon wander around draped in a blanket, like some sort of circus tent that's collapsed in on itself. Her script isn't where she left it on the coffee table, and after some searching she finds it on the bookshelf between Quantum Field Theory of Point Particles and Strings and The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future. Five years ago she wouldn't even have known the difference between quantum field theory and Star Trek.

These days Sheldon makes no more than a token protest when she borrows his shirts, so she goes in his room and digs around for something to snuggle in while she works. He's so anal that she can't help but chuckle to herself; his shirts look like they could be on display in a department store. She passes over the Marvel drawer, the DC drawer, and the alternative science fiction drawer. In the very bottom of his dresser he has some plain, solid t-shirts and sweatshirts. She shifts aside a diaphanous black robe and spots a zippered sweatshirt. Bingo. She's careful to replace his stacks exactly as she found them, minus her pilfered find, and she slides the drawer shut before unfolding the jacket.

A box falls out.

The sweatshirt falls aside as she reaches for the box with trembling fingers. It's a little box, a jewelry box, covered in a soft, dove-grey velvet and just the right size for a necklace or maybe a ring. She could open it and Sheldon would never be any wiser. He'd never know the difference -

But she still hasn't found the words to tell him yet, so she puts the little box back in the bottom of the drawer and takes the sweatshirt with her to the living room.

-

When she rolls into work at eleven on the dot, the place is booming. Working the lunch shift is like that - some days there's just a trickle of people, and some days they get slammed all at once. She gives her apron strings a resolute tug, grabs her notepad, and starts taking orders.

She enjoys working at the Cheesecake Factory, for the most part. She likes interacting with people, and even if waitressing is kind of a cliché in the business she likes the idea of earning her money the same way so many other actresses have. Days like this are the best - she's so busy that the time flies by, and before she know it the clock reads quarter after four and she's gathering her purse to leave.

Grace is her relief. Penny's drifted away from most of her early California friends, apart from Carrie; when she's not hanging with the guys these days she runs with the theater crowd, but Grace is probably the only person from work that she's close to. She's a Midwest transplant like Penny, and she's single -

Single. Huh.

"Hey, Grace," Penny says. "I have this friend - he's a great guy, smart and funny, and would you be interested in meeting him?"

Grace chews on her lip. She's shy, and Penny thinks that would make her a perfect match for Leonard; they could be shy and cute at each other. Penny doesn't so much understand timidity herself. She's more a fan of taking what she wants, but she's not about exploiting the quality to, say, get her friends together.

Maybe that's why she and Sheldon work together. Sheldon doesn't know how to be shy.

"That might be okay," Grace finally says. "What does he do?"

"He's a physicist at CalTech. I think you've met him before, maybe?"

"Oh!" Grace's eyes light up. "Sheldon's short friend. With the glasses."

Penny winces for Leonard, but she figures Grace doesn't have much room to talk - the other woman might be an inch over five feet on a good day. "Um, yeah. His name's Leonard. I could see if he's interested?"

"Cool. Thanks, Penny!"

"No problem," Penny says. "And hey, watch out for the family at table six. The little kid keeps throwing cereal."

With the traffic, she doesn't pull into CalTech until 4:34. Sheldon's just gonna have to deal, she figures, but when she gets to his office he's still working, frantically scribbling twisty little symbols on his white board.

"Sheldon," she calls. "Knock, knock."

He ignores her and keeps scribbling.

She shakes her head. He'll be there all night if she doesn't break his concentration, so just because she can she backs out of the office and closes the door.

Then she knocks.

Knockknockknock. "Sheldon." Knockknockknock. "Sheldon!" Knockknockknock. "Shel-don!"

When she opens the door again he's scowling at her. "C'mon," she says. "Time to go."

"I simply must finish computing the - "

"Nope," she says, and pries the marker from his hand. "Last time you told me that we were here for hours and you made me miss American Idol and then you bitched the whole way home because Comics Cave was closed and the guys had Halo night without us. Time to go."

He pauses, and then hands her the marker cap. "You make a compelling argument."

"Course I do," she says. "I called in our order at Soup Plantation on the way here."

"You do realize that driving while performing other tasks, such as talking on the phone, exponentially increases the chance of traumatic collisions," he says as he follows her outside.

"No kidding," she replies, but without rancor. By now she's learned that exponentially increases the chance of traumatic collisions is Sheldon-ese for I worry about you when you talk and drive.

-

At this point in her association with Sheldon she's been to just about every comic book store in Los Angeles County, and Comics Cave is the best around. It isn't enormous like some of the geek warehouses she's been to, but the owner's not creepy, which is a definite selling point. There are some comics stores she wouldn't feel safe in alone, the kind that are lorded over by old leches and run by greasy-haired college boys, but Larry's a nice middle-aged guy with a family of his own and he doesn't look her over like she's a slab of meat.

Sheldon immediately draws Larry into a discussion about the resurrection of Captain America, so Penny starts browsing the shelves. She picks up the latest issues of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight and Runaways, toys with Invincible Iron Man, and finally puts it back on the shelf. Sheldon buys all the Iron Man stuff anyway; she can borrow his copy. When they leave he's carrying what must be sixty dollars of comics. It's a good thing he hoards all of his money, because otherwise he'd go broke on Batman.

She pulls into Soup Plantation - conveniently located next to the dry cleaner's - and waits in the car while he runs inside. He emerges five minutes later juggling approximately a metric ton of soup with her pink floral dress, and immediately admonishes her to start driving before the bacterial growth becomes intolerable.

Wolowitz pulls in on his scooter at the same time they do, and he helps them get the takeout up the stairs. It looks like Sheldon's bought an entire gallon of his favorite creamy tomato. Raj and Leonard have let themselves in and already have the Xbox set up, and Sheldon takes his usual spot on the couch and begins distributing containers of soup.

Penny hangs back for a minute and takes it all in. Raj is flipping through a Halo 3 guide while Leonard relates some anecdote about a new laser experiment; as she watches, Sheldon uses his soup spoon to sketch a rebuttal in the air, and Howard jumps in to defend Leonard, or possibly request seasoning - she can't keep up with all their technobabble. As a high school student filled with dreams of the big city and starring roles, she never would have envisioned this as her life.

She's happy anyway.

She squeezes in to her usual spot between Sheldon and Howard at the same time that Howard produces a DVD from somewhere - she's not sure where he keeps things when his pants are that tight, but whatever. "Check it out, guys," he says. "I scored a high-quality copy of the test footage from The Avengers that they showed at last year's Comic Con."

They spend the next five minutes watching a bunch of men in costumes fly around, which Penny is sort of interested in because, hello, Robert Downey Jr., and then thirty minutes after that discussing casting. The guys are moving on to the aerodynamics of Iron Man's armor when Penny polishes off her baked potato soup.

"Finished?" Sheldon says to her in a low voice.

Penny sucks on her spoon and watches Howard try to convince the room that he got laid by Gwyneth Paltrow. "Yep," she says. "You can't beat Soup Plantation for potato soup, especially when they put in extra bacon. I don't get why you're so hung up on the creamy tomato."

"I find the ingredient ratios preferable to the creamy tomato soups sold elsewhere," he says, which is high praise from Sheldon, so she darts her hand forward and steals a bite. It is pretty good, but she likes the potato better - it reminds her of home.

Sheldon looks at her disapprovingly, but rather than launching into a lecture he merely asks, "Did you know that there is a study that suggests if a man consumes a bowl of tomato soup each week, his sperm count will increase significantly?"

"No kidding," she says. "Tomato soup?"

"Yes, although I am disinclined to agree with the validity of the study."

"Huh," she says, and realizes that the room has fallen silent. Raj and Howard are crouched down behind the TV, fiddling with some wires, but Leonard's giving her that same puzzled look from this morning.

Penny forces a smile and says, "Clean-up time!" She wads a handful of soup containers and napkins into a discarded paper bag and escapes to the kitchen trash can. It's true enough that she's done nothing to hide her relationship with Sheldon, and it's true enough that Leonard seems like he's over his infatuation, but she still feels awkward around him. He's such a good friend to her, and he's Sheldon's best friend, even if Sheldon will never admit it. The last thing she wants to do is hurt Leonard, so she crams the paper sack into the garbage can and avoids the puzzled glances he's shooting at her over his shoulder.

Sheldon passes behind her to dump a handful of utensils in the sink, and as he crosses behind her back again she feels the lightest brush of fingertips against the nape of her neck. It's only the barest ghosting touch of skin against skin, but the gesture races down her spine and jolts straight to her toes. She gasps, but Sheldon's already sitting down on the couch as if he never touched her.

Something warm blooms in her chest. "Hey, Leonard," she calls. "Did I tell you that I have this single friend who's maybe interested in meeting you?"

Leonard's head snaps around so fast he nearly falls out of his chair. "Really?"

"Yep," she says, popping the p. "Her name's Grace."

"And she actually said she wants to meet me?"

"She sure did," Penny says. "She's going to be at the premiere in a couple of weeks, but if you want I can give you her cell number."

"Gee, that'd be great." Leonard has to be the only person she knows who can say "gee" without making it seem sarcastic. "Thanks, Penny."

"You're welcome," she says, and then she's called to come participate in the usual rounds of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock that proceed any four-player game with five players.

-

By 9:30 the guys have cleared out of the apartment and she's left sitting on the couch, sipping at a mug of caffeine-free and watching Sheldon finish up his nightly kitchen-cleaning rituals. He's so methodical about everything he does; it would drive her nuts if it didn't mean that she gets out of washing the dishes.

"Sheldon, you want to watch something?" she asks.

He pulls off his rubber gloves and turns to her. "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan?"

"Sweetie, we watched that last night."

"Then what do you propose? The Search for Spock? The Voyage Home?"

"Um, no."

"Good lord, woman, you aren't seriously suggesting The Final Frontier, are you?"

"Actually," Penny says, "I'm suggesting that it's my turn to pick, because, like I said, we watched Star Trek last night. And I am feeling in the mood for a musical."

"Fiddler on the Roof?" he asks, in a weak tone that suggests a complete lack of hope.

"Hairspray," Penny decides. "Or - no - how about Across the Universe?"

"If you insist," Sheldon says. He looks like he wants to protest, but he puts the DVD in the player without further comment.

At least until she's settled against his side and the opening credits have started to roll. "This movie is really nothing more than one extended psychedelic experience brought on by the use of hallucinogens," he says.

"It is kind of trippy, but the music's really good. And I like the trippy scenes."

"I suppose the music is marginally less grating than your typical fare," he concedes. His fingers are beating out a counter-rhythm on her arm. He's warm and solid next to her; it took her many moons to get him this comfortable with informal human contact, but she's reaping the benefits now.

Also, the sleeves of his dress shirt are still rolled up.

A few minutes later he surprises her by commenting, "I like this part." Jude's in a bowling alley, singing that he's fallen in love with Lucy, and she stares up at Sheldon in surprise.

"Why, Sheldon Cooper," she says. "Did you just admit to being a closet romantic?"

"I did no such thing. I simply observed that the upbeat tempo of this song is pleasing."

"Sure you did," she says, and settles her forehead against the side of his neck. His right hand is spread between her shoulder blades, but as she moves he runs his knuckles down the dip of her back. She takes his earlobe between her teeth and gives a light tug, and Sheldon shudders in response.

"We won't finish the movie," he says.

"We didn't finish Wrath of Khan."

"Point." Lightning-quick he slides a hand between her legs and shifts her so she's straddling his lap. She groans in appreciation and kisses him open-mouthed; his fingers creep up her neck and tug at her ponytail holder until her hair spills loosely over her shoulders. He tangles his hand in the blonde cloud and twists a little until she starts rocking against him. One of her knees must have landed on the DVD remote, because the movie has jumped ahead and now a refrain of "I want you, I want you so bad" is pouring from the speakers.

Sheldon's hard beneath her and hot, she's so hot, and he presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth as he traces the lower crease of her breasts. When she pulls away his hair's sticking up and he's flushed and panting, and it's all she can do to gasp out, "Bed?"

He swallows and agrees roughly. "Bed." From there it's a race to see who can get to the bedroom fastest; his is closer, and they fall together in a tangle of limbs. There's a brief tussle for dominance, but she can't complain when he presses her against the mattress and licks a trail down her breastbone. She likes him like this - likes that she can arouse him to the point that he forgets about germs and string theory and his double doctorates, that he forgets everything except that he wants to pin her down and kiss her. The world takes on a heady, pleasant dullness, and everything narrows until all that matters is Sheldon's hands and Sheldon's mouth and Sheldon -

They curl together afterwards, Penny contentedly sandwiched by the sprawl of Sheldon's long limbs. He's out like a light almost immediately, too, which is reassuring in its normalcy. Sheldon isn't like any man she's been with before - she'd call him a significant improvement, except his ego's large enough already - but sometimes it's nice to know that he's as human as she is, and like any human male she can count on him to fall asleep after sex.

She can hear the movie still playing through the open door. Sheldon's face is relaxed, none of the proud hauteur or rigidity he displays during the daytime, and she's suddenly overcome with an intense need to wake him up and ask him about the little box hidden in his dresser, to tell him how she feels when they're not caught in the heat of the moment -

Instead she twists so they're face to face and sings softly along to the movie. "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah," she whispers, and presses a kiss to his forehead. Then she nestles further into her Sheldon-and-blanket cocoon and closes her eyes.

There will be time enough tomorrow for questions.

— continued in Life, in a Nutshell