Disclaimer: The Big Bang Theory = not mine.

Happy new year all! And behold: how I spent my Hogmanay. This, volume two of The Sandman, a Cold War Kids album, and Haribo. A wild party indeed.

Nine

-meanwhile, in universe Alpha-

Penny hadn't heard of Florence and the Machine until her cousin Kitty moved to England and sent back a CD. Alright, it's technically a Christmas present, but it had looked all shiny and pretty under Penny's spindly, slightly sad-looking Christmas tree and she hadn't been able to help herself. Now the music is playing while she carefully teases her hair into a kind of afro-like...thing. It was originally meant to be one of those big, 80s-style perms, but it's just turned into a puffy, candyfloss-y mess. She doesn't even feel like going out tonight. Ugh. She drops the comb wearily, and slumps back onto her couch.

Too much on my mind, is the problem.

Ever since Sheldon told her about their...alternate situation, she hasn't been able to stop thinking about it. She hasn't dated anyone. Hasn't been able to speak to Leonard normally, even though she has no reason at all to feel awkward. She just keeps thinking about Sheldon and...oh God, it should disgust her (after all, he does look like a giant praying mantis) but it just doesn't. There's no rational explanation for it.

The phone rings. She turns down the music before she answers it.

"Hello?"

"Penny!"

"Mom?"

"I'm just calling to see if you're bringing a friend to Christmas dinner. I'm about to start cooking and I just thought I'd better check."

"It's the nineteenth of December, and you're about to start cooking? Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"Not with thirty-seven people coming to dinner, sweetie." Penny's mother chuckles good-naturedly. "So, are we making it thirty-eight?"

"Um, I can't think of anyone."

"Not Leonard?"

"Mom, Leonard and I haven't been together since last year."

"I know, but I just thought..." A sigh. "Alright. What about that Sheldon boy?"

"Sheldon?" She tries a laugh. It comes out as more of a nervous squeal. "Mom, it would take five minutes before three quarters of our family had tried to shoot him."

"Ah, we could give them a talking to beforehand."

"No Mom. He's spending Christmas with his family in Texas." It's a guess, but a feasible one.

"Oh. Ok. Well I'll see you in a few days."

"Yeah Mom. Bye."

XXX

"I don't know what to tell you buddy." Howard straightens up and arches his back, stretching. "It just looks like another one of your crackpot inventions."

Sheldon appears not to have heard him. He taps his bottom lip with a finger as he considers the spherical object.

"It's got something to do with the universe switch." He turns it over in his hands. "Some kind of...interdimensional transporter? I don't understand what use Sheldon Alpha would have for such a device."

"Jeez, I don't know." Howard runs a hand through his hair apologetically. "You're always talking about science for the sake of science."

Sheldon chews his lip.

"Doesn't feel like one of those things." The words are quiet, more to himself than to Howard.

"Why do you want to get back to your universe anyway?" Howard sits down on the couch and leans back. "If everything is exactly the same, then what are you missing?"

Sheldon is quiet for a moment. He almost, almost, mentions the child. But really...isn't that something he'd be better off avoiding? Something better left well alone? Here he can focus on his work. And...and here, Leonard isn't angry with him, and Penny won't have to move back to Nebraska...

But. But...

Penny Alpha isn't his Penny.

It's a pointless thought, stupid, unreasoned. It's not the way Sheldon's beautiful mind works. People don't factor in – there is only his work, his routine, and his occasional geeky pleasures. But Penny is a factor now, in his decision making and in his life. He is...fond of her.

"It...isn't right for me to be here," is the answer he finally, tentatively gives.

Howard sighs, rolls his eyes.

"You wouldn't want to mess up the space-time continuum." He reaches for the sphere. "May I...?"

Sheldon hands it over. The engineer turns it, his fingers tracing the join where the two half-spheres connect, the bump in the metal where the hinge is. The rough-looking USB port, just below where the hinge has been welded onto the main body.

"Alright, so we've basically got two options," he sighs, "we can plug this thing into your laptop and see what happens, or we try and figure out how to get into it, because it's obviously meant to open."

"I've tried to open it before," Sheldon snaps, "that was the first thing I did."

"Ah, but have you tried to open it my way?" Howard pulls a crowbar from his toolbox.

"Why do you have a crowbar in your toolbox? Have you been stealing cars? Perhaps assaulting frail, elderly women?" Sheldon is getting snide. It's a sign of his annoyance. Howard only smiles.

"You never know when one can come in handy, Sheldon. Like today."

He has Sheldon hold the bottom half of the sphere while he pulls at the top half. Despite his appearance, the taller man is surprisingly strong and in a matter of minutes the two have persuaded the device to reveal its secrets.

The top half gives very suddenly, with a crack that almost tears the hinge off, and then it is lying, still and open, on the apartment floor. Engineer and physicist edge towards it.

"Is that an orange?"