Chapter one:

It had been about 2 and a half months since the guys had left for the Arctic and Penny was bored out of her mind. She was sat at home watching her newly bought Star Trek DVDs, which she had taken a liking to since the guys had left. As much as she hated to admit it, she really missed them. They were her nerds, and she wasn't sure what to do without them. Even though she claimed that she had better things to do than hang out with them, when they were gone she had realised that she organised her schedule around what they liked to do instead of her usual social life. She glanced at her calendar on her wall and saw that in exactly 2 weeks they would be back and she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that it was so far away.

She got up to make herself some microwave popcorn when she heard a loud crash from the apartment across the hall. She froze, her head turning towards the sound. Uh oh. She dashed to the door, grabbing the guy's spare key from the hook and sneaking across the hall. She pressed her ear to the door and heard several crashes from inside the apartment. She couldn't help but feel scared as she knew that this was not Leonard and Sheldon home early from their trip as there was no way Sheldon would allow them to wreck his apartment, she could almost hear him scolding them in her mind. A loud crash from behind the door caused her to jump away from the door with a small squeak. She was almost sure she heard a man curse from inside. She took a breath and unlocked the door before she could change her mind and was blinded by the bright beam of a torch. Penny cried out as she was tackled out the way and a man rushed past her and down the stairs, leaving her in a disgruntled heap on the hallway floor.

Penny desperately tried not to cry as she got to her feet and poked her head through the open door of the guy's apartment. The first thing she noticed was that the place was completely trashed; as she took a tentative step into the apartment she also saw that the window was wide open. She dashed forward and slammed it shut, letting out a small squeak and the noise made her jump. Then she checked the whole apartment to try to see how much had been taken, but the quiet apartment was making her scared, almost as if she could feel an imaginary someone watching her. She began to sob as she made her way into the living room and grabbed the phone, dialling the number she knew by heart but had never used.

"Hello?" he said, his voice sounding tinny and far away.

"Sheldon..." she sobbed.

"Penny? Is that you? Why are you in our apartment? Is that..? Are you...crying?"

"Penny's crying? Let me talk to her!" she could hear Leonard and Howard chime in the background. She managed a watery smile as she imagined them squabbling over the phone.

"Enough!" she heard Sheldon shout. "Penny is obviously in distress now will you pipe down so we can ask her about it" she heard him cough awkwardly "Penny? I'm going to put you on speaker phone alright?"

"Yeah" she said sniffling.

She was greeted by a chorus of "Penny!" "Are you ok?" and "Don't cry baby I'll be home soon."

"Ew Howard" she said smiling.

"Now Penny tell us what's wrong." Leonard said soothingly "Did you get dumped?"

"What? No!" she said bursting into fresh tears "I'm not that shallow that id interrupt your important science trip thingy just because some guy dumped me! God!"

"What happened then?"

"Some guy broke into your apartment! I tried to stop him but he knocked me to the floor!" by the end of the sentence her voice was so high pitched she was sure that she had hurt their ears.

"What?!?" Sheldon squawked "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

She was flattered that Sheldon had broken out of his "cyborg" self long enough to ask how she was before he demanded to know what had been taken.

"No I'm fine, but your place is wrecked. I'm so sorry I didn't get here in time! But I thought maybe it was you guys home early so I didn't think to check until I heard a big crash, and by then the guy had already took some stuff but I can't see what and I—"

"Penny, why does it seem like you think we are going scold you for something you had no control over?"

She blinked. Sheldon wasn't blaming her? Really? "So you're not mad?"

"Well of course not. Penny the only reason we would be mad was if the thief has somehow tainted our most valuable collectables." There was a silence. "Oh god!" Sheldon exclaimed and the conversation was taken off speaker phone.

"Penny its Leonard, I'm afraid Sheldon has erm gone to the bathroom."

"Right" she sniffled knowing full well that Sheldon had gone into panic mode.

"Listen, just go home for tonight and don't worry about it. We will be home soon so just go to sleep OK?"

"Yeah, you're right. OK well I guess I'll see you guys in 2 weeks."

They said goodbye and hung up. She looked around the room, sighed heavily and began to clean up the mess. It took two days for Penny to get the apartment back to its original state. She felt a surge of pride as she finished tidying, followed by a surge of exhaustion and she collapsed onto the sofa and fell into a deep sleep.

The next thing she knew it was dark and she was being shaken awake.

"Penny, wake up." "Leonard she's in my spot! Make her move." "Well if it isn't a blonde goddess! No! Don't wake her till I've taken the picture!" She blinked as she sat up and was confronted by four very furry faces looking curiously down at her.

"You're back?" She said sleepily.

"Yes we are in fact "back" and you are in my spot." Sheldon replied as though he was informing a small child. She squealed with happiness and threw her arms around Leonard hugging him tight, before moving on to Howard who, true to his nature, tried to cop a feel. She stopped in front of Raj. "Hi Raj." She waited for him to say something back, as was her habit. He struggled for a moment before looking at her helplessly and she couldn't help but kiss him on the cheek as she hugged him, he was just too cute.

She turned to Sheldon, who was looking down at her warily. She considered for a moment, deciding what to do, when she realised that she had probably missed him the most. As she looked up into his blue eyes, slightly covered by his dark hair, she realised that she missed all of his annoying traits. Like the way he always made her move from his spot when she'd sat there to tease him, when he constantly told her off for something that wouldn't have bothered anyone else but drove him crazy, the crazy way he knocked her door at exactly eleven in the morning. So she broke out into a huge smile and threw her arms around his neck before he could stop her, stretching to the very tips of her toes to reach him. The other guys gasped as they all waited for Sheldon's response. He froze. His whole body going rigid, before he slowly brought his arms around her and patted her shoulder awkwardly with one hand while the other had slipped around her waist, she tightened her hold on his neck in response. She could hear the guys mumbling about this interesting development, but she didn't want to let go until he made her because she knew that he would never let her touch him like this again. After several long moments he finally brought his hands up and gently removed her arms from around his neck with shaky fingers. She stepped back and braced herself along with Leonard, Howard and Raj to see his reaction. He looked slightly shocked and just stared at her until he finally said, "That's strike 2 Penny."

She burst out laughing "What was Strike one?"

"You were in my spot, when you know that's not allowed."

She giggled, patted him on the arm and turned to the others. "God I've really missed you guys! How come you're back so early?"

"Well we had gotten most of the results we needed, so when we heard what happened we thought it best that we returned." Leonard said nervously twisting his fingers as he spoke, she stared at him fondly.

"Well I for one am so glad you guys are back. I think I cleaned the place ok, but I only just finished a couple of hours ago so I don't know if I got it back to how you guys like it." She cast a nervous glance around the room, searching for anything she might have missed. Sheldon shuffled past her and sat himself down in his spot, sighing as he relaxed into the cushions.

"Seems fine to me." He murmured and his eyes slowly began drift shut. Penny shot a curious glance at the others and they shrugged as they watched Sheldon drift to sleep on the sofa. She smiled softly and said goodbye, giving each of them another hug as she knew they must all be very tired. She went back into her apartment for the first time in two days and for some reason it felt warmer. She went to sleep with a smile on her face that night.