Heya guys- heres another one (two chapters in the one day!). This one begins AU, but finishes with the Penny/Sheldon dynamic we all love. Set to "Half of My Heart" by John Mayer, ft Taylor Swift. Not as angsty as the last couple I've done, so it should be a good change.
Disclaimer: I own no characters nor any lyrics. If I did, I wouldn't be a poor uni student.
I was born in the arms of imaginary friends
Free to roam, made a home out of everywhere I've been
Then you come crashing in, like the realest thing
Trying my best to understand all that your love can bring
He was 12 when she moved in, just about to head off to college and get out of the tiny trailer park that had contained his genius since he was old enough to understand it. She was ten and more of a boy than he was. He seemed to lose count of the times he would watch her from the tiny window of his room, playing some form of sports with her father while he called her "Slugger".
Her blonde hair was flattened and squeezed under the blue baseball cap she wore backwards, her oversized football jersey which looked like a dress was probably the only feminine part of her outfit. Of her in general, he corrected himself.
Except for her laugh. High pitched and easily irritating, he knew it was a sound he would never forget. The peals would sound over the crows as they disturbed his study for the umpteenth time. Not that he could really study in the middle of summer anyway, the heat was unbearable in the house and with his mother preparing roasts practically every day, he found solace under the large oak tree by the entrance. It was the same one he had taken refuge from a rather contentious chicken that one time.
It was there that he first encountered how unbelievably preppy and naive this girl was.
He had been sitting there with a large book, half paying attention to the page and half paying attention to the chicken which was slyly eyeing him off from across the street when the baseball had rolled within a foot of him. He tore his eyes from the book and looked up.
She was standing a good 15 feet from him.
"Hey! Can you throw my ball back?" She yelled.
He eyed the ball up. It was obviously old, the seams were all worn and the leather all cracked. There was obviously a myriad of diseases on it and he crinkled up his nose in distaste.
"Hey, mister!" She yelled again, this time louder. "The ball? Can you throw it back please?"
He stood, carefully noting the page number in his book and closing it, and gingerly picked up the ball between his thumb and forefinger. A quick calculation in his head and he sent it flying through the air, landing neatly in her pitchers mitt.
"Nice toss!" She shouted in his direction as she tore off towards her father.
As he watched her run and send the ball flying into his hand with the resultant "thwack" reaching even his ears, he shook his head and reopened his book, reasserting in his mind that he would never understand girls.
Oh, half of my heart's got a grip on the situation I was made to believe I'd never love somebody else
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
That I can't keep loving you
Oh, with half of my heart
I made a plan, stay the man who can only love himself
Lonely was the song I sang, 'til the day you came
Showing me a better way and all that my love can bring
It was the hottest summer on record that year. Even to his own father's displeasure, he spent most of it on the roof, documenting the movement of the constellations and the planets. His mother made excuses for him as usual, his sister picked on him as usual and his brother chose in part to ignore him as much as he could. As usual.
The only variable to his constant routine was her.
It was inevitable that one night (as she had seen him climb up there for the past three nights in a row, from her spot by her window); she clambered up the side of the house and sat next to him without uttering a word. She merely looked over his shoulder and wordlessly mouthed the names of the stars he had jotted down first to act as markers for the others. He licked his lips and swallowed hard at the sound of her Nebraskan accent stumbling over words that were new and foreign to her.
He turned to face her and did a double take when he saw her.
"You are aware you're wearing a dress, correct?"
"Yep" She said, leaning back on both hands to stare at the sky. "My dad has decided it's time I became a girl"
He was silent for a moment.
"Why are you telling me this? I didn't ask any questions, nor prompt you in any way. I haven't displayed any interest in this topic of conversation."
She turned to face him again; strands of straw coloured hair blew across her face in the warm breeze.
"You sure do talk funny"
"So do you" He bent his head back over his paper and gently drew in Alpha Centauri.
"What do you do up here? Besides draw dots on paper?" She was leaning in close again and he could smell strawberry shampoo from the stands of her hair still blowing loose.
"I'm not drawing dots. I'm mapping constellations and planetary movements."
"Why?"
"To see if there is anything I can discover out there. I'm going to win a Nobel Prize one day."
"What's a Nobel Prize?"
"It is an award given to someone outstanding in their field. One day, the name Sheldon Lee Cooper, PhD is going to be a name remembered in text books and journals and encyclopedias."
"Sheldon? That's your name?"
"Yes."
"My name is Penny."
"Oh. I see. I'll play along. Hi Penny. It's very nice to meet you."
"You too." She was silent for a moment. "Can you teach me about the stars Sheldon?"
He sighed and looked down at his half finished map. It clearly wasn't going to be completed tonight. But when he turned and looked at her, blonde hair free (for once not hidden under that germ ridden hat) and in an actual dress, not just an oversized jersey, it took him for once in his life how someone of the opposite sex could be perceived as beautiful. She smiled at him as he set down the paper and inched closer to her. Pointing his long fingers towards the heavens, he began telling her of the stars, tracing out the constellations with imaginary lines. Every now and then, she would repeat the names, re-trace the lines and whisper words of astonishment and he would feel a rather new and unexpected feeling in his stomach.
Warmth, excitement and the ever present fear.
Oh, half of my heart's got a grip on the situation Your faith is strong Half of my heart half of my heart's got a real good imagination
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
That I can't keep loving you
Oh, with half of my heart
With half of my heart
But I can only fall short for so long
Time will hold, later on
You will hate that I never gave more to you than half of my heart
But I can't stop loving you
But I can't stop loving you
But I can't stop loving you with half of my...
Half of my heart
half of my heart's got you
half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
that half of my heart won't do
"Will you write me?"
"If I'm not too busy. I do have work to do you know."
"Will you send me star maps?"
"It's going to start getting cold, and with my body mass and susceptibility to illness, I doubt I'll be able to go outside to draw you star maps." He regretted his words as soon as he saw her shoulders slump and disappointment cross her face. "But I'll try." He added quickly.
She smiled and for the first time in his life, Sheldon Lee Cooper didn't want to leave the trailer park.
"Shelly!" His mother called. "Time to go!"
"I guess this is it." She said. She held open her arms, clearly for a hug. Inside, his stomach squirmed. Partly out of fear of pathogens, partly out of fear of saying goodbye.
He took a calculated step forward, then another until he was close enough to wrap his arms (which he swore were too long for his body) around her figure, which he was also sure had changed drastically in the three months of summer. He rested his head on hers and inhaled the smell of strawberry shampoo for the last time until next summer.
When they broke apart, he swore he saw her wipe away a tear. He looked at the ground.
"I better go." He mumbled. Turning without another glance at her, he quickly walked to the car and closed himself in it. He didn't turn back until the end of the drive, where he turned in his seat and gave the smallest of waves that he wasn't sure she had seen.
Half of my heart is a shotgun wedding Half of my heart
To a bride with a paper ring
And half of my heart is the part of a man
Who's never really loved anything
Half of my heart
Half of my heart
Half of my heart
Half of my heart
Half of my heart.
True to his word, when he wasn't working, he was writing her. Her favourite packages were those that included star maps, each one drawn three months apart so she could look at two and see how they had moved.
When the start of summer arrived, she eagerly sat at the gate all morning waiting for him to come home. Three weeks into summer she had to admit that he wasn't coming back.
A month later, she was kicking stones down the driveway and angrily mumbling under her breath after her father had refused to call her "Slugger" anymore- who needs a training bra anyway?- when the postal worker brought her an extra large package.
Inside was a letter, a new star chart, a small telescope, a new baseball and there, carefully encased in its own specially made cardboard box, a tiny ring, made out of perfectly woven pieces of paper.
She placed it on her finger and reached for the letter.
Penny,
I apologise for the length of time between correspondence. I have been extremely busy with studies- so much so that they've moved me into graduate classes already, I may be graduating college in as little as two years. I've also received a letter from a prestigious college in Germany- they want me to be a guest lecturer when I graduate. It's a fantastic opportunity.
As I seem to be so busy with everything at the moment, I thought I would take the time to ask you to wear this ring I have made (it turns out that money is rather tight when you're a student, it's definitely not a myth, otherwise I would be giving you a real ring) with the promise that when science is no longer my everything in this world, that you could be my everything.
Never have I felt this way for anyone- or anything for that matter- that is not science.
I hope to write again soon.
Yours,
Sheldon.
Penny smiled as she looked at the ring on her finger. What a whack-a-doodle, she thought.
When she moved in across the hall from them 14 years later, she knew it wasn't a coincidence, it was fate. When she saw how successful he had become, she knew she would have to be second best for a while longer. He wasn't ready and neither was she. But it wasn't easy.
Later, as Penny slammed the door in Sheldon's face as he yet again failed to grasp the real world, she found herself drawn to her bedroom. Flopping down on her bed, she eyed a small box at the bottom of her closet, partially covered by clothes.
As she dug it out and sat on the floor of the wardrobe, she pulled out the various items that reminded her of her childhood and placed them on the floor- her old tattered baseball, a telescope, a file of old star maps, her blue hat and a folded football jersey, her own Corn Queen's Court tiara and a couple of old school photos- right at the bottom, she spied the small handmade paper box. Inside, still in the one piece was the woven ring. Sliding it onto her smallest finger, she smiled.
She could wait. She had waited this long already.