A/N: Hola! Lol, welcome to the first story, The Friendship Reestablishment, of my Big Bang Theory series The Cooper-Benson Exploration :) This is my first attempt at a Big Bang Theory story so I'm very excited to incorporate my OC into it :) I've written some other stories for Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, Star Trek, Thor, Merlin, Once Upon a Time, and Star Wars for anyone who might be interested ;)

This story should be about 11 chapters long and will be updated every 2 days. For example, if a chapter was posted Sunday the next one would be Wednesday and then Saturday sort of thing ;) This will also be a Sheldon/OC story but I will say right now that I have no plans to turn Amy into a jealous, cruel person as she will still feature into this story. She will approach her feelings logically and with Penny as a basis, but I will try my best not to turn her into anything that she isn't or isn't shown to have the potential to be in the show. I will try very hard to stay true to both Sheldon and Amy as much as I can while also having the history my OC will with Sheldon ;)

~8~ is a scene break.

Disclaimer: I do not own Big Bang Theory...or we would have actually seen Mrs. Wolowitz at least once :)

~8~

The Dumpling Paradox

In an room on the fourth floor of an apartment building, four grown men stood around a TV, playing Halo, shouting at the monitor, the sounds of guns blasting in the background. All four men were brilliant, respected contributors to the world of science and engineering. There was an Indian man, Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali, an Astrophysicist that suffered a case of selective mutism that often came about in the form of his inability to even speak around a woman. Then there was Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, an experimental physicist, decked in a hoodie and jacket along with black rim glasses. On the end was the tall Dr. Sheldon Cooper, a theoretical physicist wearing his typical superhero t-shirt and pants. Finishing the quartet was Howard Wolowitz, an engineer from Caltech where all four men were employed, a man sporting a bowl hair cut and a fondness for 60s style clothing. All four men were truly some of the most intelligent men of their time...yet they were gathered around to play a video game, a video game that they were so invested in, they all failed to hear the door open or the voice that spoke to them from the hallway of the apartment.

"Hi guys," a woman called. She was tall, blonde, dressed in a pink killer dress and heels with three other girls beside her. It was Penny, the girl who lived across the hall from Sheldon and Leonard, the roommates who shared the apartment that the game was held in, "My friends and I got tired of dancing, so we came over to have sex with you."

"That will do, Raj, straight for the tank!" Leonard called to Raj, the four boys not even noticing the sexy women in the doorway or what they'd just offered to do…

Not even Howard who was, of the four men, the one who lusted over the female sex most.

Such was the awesome power of Halo Night.

"We said no tanks!" Sheldon complained when one appeared in the game.

"There are no rules in hell!" Raj countered.

"Son of a bitch, medpack!" Howard shouted, frantic, as his character was hit, "I need a medpack!"

Penny nodded, fully having expected that reaction and looked at her friends, "Told yah," she remarked as they left.

"There's a sniper, use your rocket launcher!" Leonard continued to play, all four of them equally not noticing the door shutting as they had when it opened.

"All I've got is a needler, and I'm all out of ammo," Raj replied.

"And now you're out of life!" Sheldon cheered, just about to fire at Raj...when Leonard suddenly paused the game, "Why did you hit pause?"

Leonard just looked around a moment, frowning as though listening for something, "I thought I heard something."

"What?" Raj asked.

Leonard shrugged, "No, never mind, alright, go," and turned the game back on.

~8~

Meanwhile, in the hallway, Penny shook her head at the sounds of fire resuming, the noise carrying straight through the door and into the hall, "What did I say?" she smirked at her friends who could only shake their heads, they hadn't believed her when she'd said she lived next door to uber-geeks.

"Hey y'all," a voice called from the stairs.

They looked over to see a woman with deep red hair step up to their floor, a small rolling suitcase behind her. Her hair was in a messy bun though from the parts that had escaped it, they could tell it was semi-long, she squinted in greeting, making her grey eyes more noticeable when she opened them fully. She looked a little out of breath and more than a bit disheveled, though Penny had a suspicion it was from climbing all the godforsaken stairs to get to that floor. The woman had a white tank on, a with a grey vinyl jacket over it that seemed more like a raincoat than a normal jacket, a pair of glasses just barely poking out of the breast pocket of it. There was a teal stripped scarf that was more one of the fashionable ones instead of a winter-scarf about to fall off her neck and she'd selected a pair of dark blue jeans with some black flats on, all of which drew Penny's eye as she had quite an interest in fashion in general. The girl wasn't...bad, but she could use a bit of help in the matching department, she was getting the impression the girl had just thrown on the first thing she'd grabbed it just...didn't match as well as it could. Not terrible, but it could use improvement.

"Sorry," she smiled at them, just a little out of breath from the climb, "I heard a ruckus on my way up. What's going on?"

Penny had to smile at the girl, she had a rather lovely southern drawl about her, a little more pronounced than Sheldon's was, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

The girl gave a small nod, eyeing the door, hearing the gunshots going off within, "Let me guess, grown men so into a game of..." she winced at a particularly loud blast from within, "Halo? That they didn't notice four sexy women offering them the night of their lives?"

Penny blinked, "How'd you know?"

The girl laughed, "I've seen it happen before, sugar…" she frowned at the door a moment, her attention pulled their quite suddenly when the men inside let out a loud, angry groan at something, before pointing at it, "Sheldon Cooper wouldn't happen to be in there, would he?"

Penny nodded, surprised, "Yeah, actually he is."

The girl smirked and crossed her arms to lean on the handle of her rolling pack, "What would you say if I told you that I can not only get him to stop playing Halo, but forget about it for the rest of the night?"

Penny grinned, "I'd say you're on."

The girl laughed and rolled her suitcase up to the door of the apartment and set it to the side. She straightened before the door...and knocked quickly four times, doing four sets of it in a small rhythm.

Penny's eyes widened as she heard the gunshots cut off almost instantly and Leonard call from within, "Why'd you pause the game Sheldon?"

The girl's smirk morphed into a smile that had her teeth biting her bottom lip for a moment before calling through the door, "Shelly Bean! You'd best open this door right now and give me a hug!"

Penny gaped at that. SHELDON? Give someone a hug? Sheldon COOPER? Not a chance!

But then, to her surprise and the utter shock of the boys in the room, the door flew open and Sheldon was standing there, staring at the girl with wide eyes, "Claire Bear?"

She laughed, holding her arms open, "Still waiting for that hug, and you know it's part of our friendship contract so don't you be tryin' to get out of it Shelly."

Penny was completely sure that hell had frozen over when Sheldon, though begrudgingly and looking rather pained and petulant, awkwardly hugged the redhead for all of 5 seconds before stepping back quickly, something that made the girl, Claire, roll her eyes.

"Oh get that sour lemon look off that face of yours," Claire nudged him in the stomach, a very particular spot that made him do a peculiar little breathy laugh that only Sheldon Cooper could manage, "You upheld your end of the contract, you know I'll do the same on my end."

He just shook his head, "What are you doing here?"

He'd known it was her even before he'd opened the door. It was how she'd knocked, it was HER knock. Much like he tended to knock on a door three times and called out someone's name while he did it...three times...she did four rapid knocks four times, a very familiar rhythm from Doctor Who, a beloved show of the both of them. She had called dibs the moment she had heard that rhythm, literally called him up and claimed it before he could get a word in. He hadn't gotten a chance to hear her use it till just now. And it was wonderful.

She beamed, nearly squealing as she told him what was clearly very good news to her, "I got a job at Caltech!"

His eyes widened, actually seeming to sparkle with equal excitement, before a frown took place on his face, "Why didn't you tell me you were applying?" he crossed his arms, about an inch away from pouting though he wouldn't quite go that far in front of an audience, "I must say you are pushing the limits of the best friend agreement a little too far."

She just shook her head, not even noticing the stunned looks on the others faces when Sheldon Cooper not only claimed he had a best friend, but that it was a female one as well, "I didn't want you to be disappointed if I didn't get it."

He gave her a small, crooked, Sheldon Cooper smile, "When have you ever disappointed me Dr. Benson?"

"When I tried to help you build your own CAT scanner Dr. Cooper," she winced at the memory, poor old Snowball the Guinea Pig, may he rest in peace.

He gave another short laugh, thinking of his sister's reaction to her pet being involved, "Missy wasn't very happy."

She shook her head, focusing back to the present, and nudged him again, "Well what are you waitin' for Shelly?" she smiled, "Or are you forgetting about my end of the contract!"

His eyes widened in excitement at the prospect of what that would mean, "Yes, of course," he nodded, turning to grab his coat from the nearby rack, "To the comic book store!"

It was an agreement they had. Both knew that their jobs would keep them apart, only able to visit the other a few times a year. So they'd agreed, whenever they would be able to meet up, that Sheldon would give her a hug, something he didn't particularly enjoy, if she would agree to let him show her the nearest comic book store, which she wasn't particularly fond of, preferring books over comics. Sheldon had agreed in the end, the prospect of getting more comics being too enticing to turn down over such a short amount of human contact. Really, it might be unfair to Claire more than him. His end of the agreement lasted all of 5 seconds, hers could last HOURS.

He moved to step out of the apartment, pausing when he noticed her suitcase resting beside the door, and grabbed it, setting it inside the apartment before heading off, his controller for Halo still lying on the table, the game still paused, the two sets of observers still gaping at the doorway

The boys looked at each other as the girls watched Claire go, the woman throwing a wink at them over her shoulder, impressed, when Howard said the only thing that was on all of their minds.

"What the frak?"

A/N: A very, VERY short chapter, I know :(

...which is why we're going to get a SECOND one today! ^-^ In about 2 hours we'll have another chapter up ;) I just really liked where this one ended and the general confusion that everyone is feeling, the shock, and the questions :) So we'll have much more about Claire and her story to come ;)

For a reference, I picture Claire to look something like Felicia Day ;)

And I just want to say thank you to all of you for your understanding about the lateness of posting this series. My father is on the road of being declared Cancer Free and is recovering well and it really means a lot to me the support I received from readers and the understanding of the pauses I had to take in posting. I hope to be able to resume the stories and keep them going with no interruptions from here on out. In fact, to celebrate being back, today we should be getting a new story/chapter of other works just about every 2 hours ;)

I have, unfortunately, been forced to revise my stories for 2015 :( The new schedule of what will be updated/posted in 2015 and when is on my tumblr.