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It begins with peculiar stomach pains: an otherwise pleasant dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, resplendent with the usual verbal sparring with Penny, plagued by a small, but agonizing twist of his stomach; empty pangs as he tries desperately to sleep at night; and worst of all, a searing burn as he sits through yet another unpleasant episode of Penny’s asinine program. She sits contentedly at his side, jabbering on about This and That, and though his past inclination would have been to flee from the unending foolishness, he absorbs it all.
The pains are tolerable. Sheldon has had a lifetime to cope with physical pains. But when his mind begins to tarry, he knows something is wrong. Instead of running calculations with unusual ease, he catches himself recounting the particular high points of his recent battles with Penny, and rather than taking notes, he discovers he spends significant time plotting his next move against her. He’s starting to slip. He can feel it. It makes him anxious.
So he does what he knows any self-respecting scientist would do: he begins to research and experiment, all in the hope of naming the source of his body and mind’s distress. He scours the limitless resources at his disposal for his symptoms, but finds nothing fitting. He changes his diet, regularly skipping dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. He devotes more time to his studies. He works out better and more clever ways to outwit Penny. (He briefly looks into exercising, but rules this consideration out quickly.)
His efforts make no difference. He’s still plagued by wandering thoughts and uncomfortable jabs.
So he sacrifices more: forgoes the Cheesecake Factory all together; finds additional projects and puzzles to sharpen his mind; deserts his war with Penny. In the end, he shuts himself in his room.
Penny does not approve. Three weeks into Sheldon’s harsh regiment against himself, she begins bringing his favorite dinner from the Factory, complete with the only dessert he’s ever ordered. Each week he promptly trashes them, and she promptly punches his shoulder. (A new tradition.)
Sometimes, when her “reality” drama has ended and the guys switch to a program like Time Warp, she devotes half an hour to bribing Sheldon to leave his room. He puts on his sound-proof headphones and shuts her out, like the rest of the world. And it must be that one of the guys has told her he’s feeling unwell because she allows his coldness much longer than he guessed she would. But it’s less than a month later before her patience vanishes, and her good will offerings cease. For another two weeks, he doesn’t hear from her.
Then he does. Mid-week, she slams the front door open (he knows she’s the one who has, because the guys protest), and he recognizes her pounding footsteps as they come toward his door. “Sheldon.” Her tone is tinted with tense civility. “You have to stop behaving like a hermit.”
“I am not behaving like a hermit, Penny. Have I moved to a wooded area? Is my room a cave? No.”
“Sheldon.” Her voice is strained. She wants to scream. (This tension in her voice is typically followed by shouting, he’s learned.)
“Please, Penny, release us both form this torment you insist upon putting his through, and leave me alone,” Sheldon commands briskly.
“No! You are infuriating, Sheldon. You’re the one doing this.” Well, that he chooses not to dignify with a response. She sighs. “Look. Come out. We’ll play Boggle. No TV...I miss you, okay?”
I miss you too, he thinks before he can stop it. He frowns. “The only Boggle worth playing is Klingon. All other attempts are vapid. Much like you.”
His words resonate though they do not echo. Silence encloses his room. After a few minutes, he’s certain she’s gone, but she’s become so quiet he didn’t hear her departing footsteps. Sheldon stares at the notes he’d been taking, but his vision is clouded. He doesn’t know what’s worse about his words: that they unjustly wounded Penny, or that they were a lie.
Very suddenly, his doorknob is being twisted, the lock violated and rendered useless. The door swings up (likely denting the plaster, and they’ll have to pay for the damage) and reveals a gravely infuriated Leonard.
“Sheldon.” He makes no effort to his his anger. “You imbecile. You cannot use your battles with Penny to devastate her just because you have feelings for her.”
“I have - what - for whom?”
“Feelings. Emotions. Happy. Sad - ”
“Dislike? Boredom - ”
“Infatuation. Love.”
“No. Emphatically, no.”
“Yes. But you’re so - such an - ”
“Imbecile?”
“Yes. Imbecile. You analyze. Physical anguish - that’s infatuation butterflies and longing aches - and mental strain, and you think you’re dying or going insane or both, but you’re just stupid, and crazy about a girl.”
“I’m not.”
“Sheldon, I’m going to make this round of Prove-It very brief: You look forward to every encounter with her, even though you pretend that it’s your little feud you enjoy most, and you endure far more from her than you would anyone else - even if your mother did tell you to play nice.”
“But - ” Sheldon throws his notebook to the ground. “Look, I don’t understand it.”
Leonard laughs, a little bitterly, a little ironically. “We’re not meant to. Science can’t cure it.”
“It ought to!”
“No. It’s what keeps us going.” Leonard sighs. “Sheldon. You made her cry.”
He finds her in the laundry room, sorting her clothes meticulously. (He’s always found it endearing that she channels her anger into compulsive behavior.) She isn’t crying now, but she has, and probably for a while. Sheldon has doubts that he’s ever made a girl cry before, but he’s sure he doesn’t like it.
“You know and understand things I can’t begin to grasp. Good things.” Penny’s shoulders first stiffen, then slump. She keeps her back to him. “You have more true confidence and radiance than any of us. You keep showing us things we wouldn’t have known without you.” She shakes her head. “Yes. We need you. You help us. You’re actually wonderful.”
“Sheldon - ”
“You aren’t vapid. I don’t believe that. I was trying to drive you off.”
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your brain is your only gift.”
“It was about safety.”
“It was about stupidity.”
“I’ve found that the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”
“I don’t doubt your experience.”
“Penny, listen. I’ve been - well, that is, I’m not sure - but I’m sorry.”
She turns to face him. “How?”
“What?”
“How was hurting me about safety?”
“It wasn’t well thought-out. I don’t always have the correct answers. I panic from time to time.”
“Over what, Sheldon?” She’s exasperated, and if the situation weren’t so emotionally taxing, he’d find it hilarious. “I just care, okay? It’s just me.”
“But you’re not just you. There’s nothing limited about you. You’re bold and yourself. You’ve become part of my life. I’ve discovered I live better with you here.” She stares at him incredulously, for the most part uncomprehending his meaning. “Pen...” He’s never had a conversation like this before. He’s short of breath, and his nerves are just shy of shorted; it’s obscene how agonizing this. “Penny, I like you. You threw me off. At first you just shifted how I orbited; now, you’re part of what I orbit. I just...like you.”
For the latter part of this horribly embarrassing speech, Penny’s head has hung, pieces of her hair falling from a careless bun. “Oh,” she says, and her voice quivers a little. “Oh, Sheldon. You have your own way of getting to places, don’t you?”
“I - what?”
She shrugs, something that covers a laugh, and he catches a glimpse of a grin behind her stray hair. “Do you know you threw me off too? All of you, but especially you. You kept doing it, and now here you are, telling me how you feel what I thought you wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
Penny shakes her head. “No, please don’t be.” She hurries toward him, and when he takes an uncertain half-step backward, she laughs exuberantly, but he doesn’t have time to consider the implications of that laughter because she’s flung her arms around him. “If it’s any consolation, I threw myself off: I like you too.”
A weight flies from his shoulders, though his heart still races. He lifts his arms and very carefully wraps them about Penny’s waist.
Sheldon can’t calculate how long they stand there. He wouldn’t wager a guess even if he could. Even when a dryer buzzes and they both give a start, they remain intertwined. His body is warm from hers, and he’s acutely aware that she’s gripping his shirt with her fists. “I don’t understand,” he admits.
She kisses him: pushes her palms flat against his back, pulls herself onto her tiptoes, and draws his mouth towards hers. He hasn’t known this; it’s beyond thought. “Then don’t try."