The Mail Interception Intervention, a big bang theory fanfic

The Mail Interception Intervention

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Big Bang Theory

Knock, knock, knock. "Penny?"

Penny peeled herself off the couch and went to answer the door. She was in no mood to see her geeky neighbors right now – the painful awkwardness of her first date with Leonard the night before was still vivid in her mind – but at least it was the other one this time. Sheldon was annoying, but at least she didn't feel guilty around him. Not like poor Leonard; he was such a nice guy and he'd tried to hard to impress her. It wasn't his fault there was zero chemistry between them.

She opened the door. "What's up?"

Sheldon's long, lanky figure vibrated with tension. He clung to the strap of his messenger bag with both hands. His mouth twitched.

"Penny," he said solemnly, "I am in the throes of an ethical dilemma."

She blinked. "You're throwing a what now?"

"The rules of friendship prevent me from interfering with any stratagems applied in the pursuit of coitus, but the laws of this country are very clear that intercepting mail constitutes a federal offense. Ordinarily, the law would seem to supersede the rules of friendship, but on the other hand, who's going to drive me to work if I don't have a roommate?"

"Sheldon." She interrupted him by firmly holding up her hand. "I'm tired. Either start making sense or go away."

"I have your mail," he blurted out, rummaging in his messenger bag. He pulled out a stack of papers – bills, flyers, a postcard - and shoved it into her hands. He darted a glance over his shoulder at the door to his apartment, as if expecting to be caught.

"Again?" Penny sighed. "I really need to talk to that mailman."

"Don't!" said Sheldon, so sharply that she almost snapped back, until he added in a much quieter voice: "It's not José's fault. He crumples up the envelopes sometimes, but he doesn't misdeliver. No, uh … those were on our coffee table."

"You took my … " Penny leafed through the mail, recognized her own name and address, and looked up at him with narrow eyes. She had a bad feeling about this. "Is this like that time you broke into my apartment to clean it? I'm warning you, mister, if you mess with my stuff one more time … "

"I swear to Newton, I didn't do it!" Sheldon, though a whole head taller than her, backed up a step at the threatening tone in her voice. "Helping you tame the Swirling Vortex of Entropy in your apartment was one thing. Intercepting your mail would be quite another. What could either of us possibly gain from that?"

His wide blue eyes were as guileless as a child's. Penny might not have finished college, but she knew how to read people, and even a short acquaintance with Sheldon was enough to convince her he was telling the truth. When he'd broken into her apartment, he hadn't even tried to deny it; he'd left a chart with his signature under it, for God's sake. Stealing her mail and then lying about it wasn't his style at all.

That still left her with an unsolved problem, however. "Well, if you didn't take it," she began, holding up the stack of mail, "Then who … ?"

Sheldon glanced at the door to 4A again and turned bright pink. At the same time, the proverbial coin that was Penny's namesake finally dropped.

Those were on our coffee table, Sheldon had said.

The mailman did it again, Leonard had said the other day, smiling hopefully as he handed her the mail. I wouldn't ask him about it if I were you. Civil servants have a tendency to snap.

It was a little thing, really. Not worth starting a fight. She'd only just moved in here; surely a bit of peace and quiet wasn't too much to ask. Part of her was tempted to just roll her eyes and let it go. It wasn't the first time a man had done something stupid to get her attention, and it wouldn't be the last.

On the other hand … she had just wasted four years of her life being cheated and lied to by Kurt. No way in hell was she letting that happen with the next guy.

She barged past Sheldon, marched over to 4A and banged on the door with the flat of her hand until it rattled.

"Leonard!"

The door opened, but only a crack. One anxious, bespectacled brown eye blinked at her. "Penny? Is, um, is something wrong?"

She pulled the door the rest of the way open and waved her stack of mail in his face. "The mailman did it, huh?" she drawled. "Nice try."

"Sheldon!" Leonard's voice rose to something between a squeak and a wail.

"I have named no names." Sheldon drew himself up tall and cut off the impending accusation with the same palm-out gesture Penny had used on him earlier. "The Roommate Agreement is still intact. You didn't expect me to be a willing accessory to mail fraud, did you?"

If Sheldon had blushed earlier, that was nothing to what Leonard was doing now. His face was almost as red as his bathrobe. A few days ago, Penny might have found that cute, but now she couldn't care less.

"So which one of you did it, Leonard?" she snapped. "Was it you? Was it the skeezy one who speaks all the languages? Or was it the one who can't talk?"

"It was me." He wrung his hands and stared up at her with the eyes of a wounded puppy. "I'm terribly sorry, Penny. I just thought … I needed some excuse to talk to you, you know?"

Unbelievable. She threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. "If you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was talk."

"I could have told you that," Sheldon chimed in from behind them.

"Shut up!" Leonard snapped at his roommate.

Penny found him sinking lower and lower in her good opinion. He could show her those puppy dog eyes as much as he liked; no way was she going out with him again.

Still … this was the same man who had told her she wasn't crazy for being conflicted about Kurt, that there was a scientific reason for feeling two things at once. This was the man who had lost his pants trying to get her TV back, who had welcomed her and fed her when she was lonely, who was the closest thing she had in this crazy city to a friend. Even if he had done all that hoping for sex, it was more than most men would have done.

He might be a bit of a creep, but so was his friend Wolowitz, and it was only a surface-level creepiness. Scrub it away, and there was good stuff underneath. She could be friends with a guy like that – as long as she made it clear where the boundaries were.

"Just don't pull another stunt like this again, okay?" she said, still firmly, but not as loudly as before. "No stealing my mail, no breaking into my apartment." She glanced up at Sheldon to make sure he knew she was referring to both of them. "I like this place, and I like you guys, but I will report you to the manager if I have to."

"Understood," said Sheldon, with a respectful nod. "While I still maintain that cleaning your apartment has improved it - " Leonard punched him on the shoulder and he winced. "I respect your need for personal boundaries and will endeavor not to transgress them again."

"What he means is we're really sorry," said Leonard. "If there's anything I can do to make it up to you … "

"Nope, we're good," she hurried to say, heading him off before he could suggest another awkward restaurant dinner. "Oh, and Sheldon?"

They both watched her with apprehension.

"Thanks for being honest," she said. "It means a lot."

Following a mischievous impulse, she reached up on tiptoe, put her hand on his shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek. He didn't jump, sputter, or dive into the apartment, but when she looked up to gauge his reaction, his face was very pink and his blue eyes very round.

Beautiful mind genius guy was speechless. How about that?

The door to 4A slammed. Leonard had disappeared behind it. Penny hoped for his sake he wouldn't sulk about this too long. After all, one bad date wasn't the end of the world.

"Well," said Sheldon, sounding slightly out of breath. "That was … unexpected."

"See ya later," Penny said brightly, whirling around and back into her own apartment before he could see that she was blushing too.

This morning she'd told herself that going out with a scientist was a terrible idea, but … maybe she'd just chosen the wrong one.