The Amphetamine Phenylethylamine Effect

– Stage 10 –

"Amphetamine Phenylethylamine"

Sheldon absently wondered whether he had ever enjoyed something as much as he had enjoyed Penny.

There had been that time when he was eight and he had managed to get his first collector's edition comic book in mint condition. There had been another time when he was thirteen and his meemaw had managed to sneak him some homemade cookies when his mother had sent him to bed with no dinner. There had been…no other time that meant as much to him as she did.

Sheldon lay on his back, Penny's head on his chest with her arm across his stomach, with a sheet carelessly strewn over them both. His eyes were fixed on a small fracture in the white paint on her bedroom ceiling – he found himself caring that there was an imperfection in the room, but not because of his 'tendencies'.

He cared because he didn't want Penny's ceiling to peel and her to have to go to the trouble of getting it all re-painted. He cared because of the trouble it would cause her.

He looked down at her, her face only just visible under her spilling golden curls and slack with sleep. He felt so much for her, and definitely something in particular.

Sheldon had read many theses, but there was one in particular that struck him at that moment: the Amphetamine Phenylethylamine Effect.

Was what he felt for Penny purely biological – the effect of natural hormones and drugs in his system?

He was certain that the answer for that was in the negative, and that his biological functions were just helping along his mind.

Because he liked Penny. He liked the way she knew how to work his Battlestar Galactica toaster and that she could get the Cylon image directly in the centre of the toast. He liked the way she didn't pretend she knew what he was talking about when he spoke about his research, and, really, he liked the way he could teach her physics. He loved the way she didn't back down, even when she irritated him, and he loved the way she didn't hold anything against him. He loved the way she accepted him, and the way she took care of him and his nervousness during coitus.

Sheldon ran his hand up her back from its place on the soft curve of her waist, pulling back a few stray curls of hair from her face so he could see her better. She shifted into him, humming quietly before falling back into sleep until her eyelids flickered softly.

He loved Penny.

Homo novus be damned, he had finally become one of the idiots. Amphetamine phenylethylamine was a beautiful thing.

Finis