I own nothing. Except the idea that Amy and Raj are heading for a sassy make-over montage of extreme fabulousness. All else belongs to Chuck Lorre, Bill Pardy and their associated minions.

You're It

"Not it!" Penny and Bernadette screeched in unison. Amy's eyes went wide.

She was it.

She had to be Raj's date for the Astrophysics dinner whatever…

"Is there an appeals process?" Amy asked Sheldon.

"Raj, you are not commandeering Amy. Find your own date." Sheldon stated, a slight redness visible on the top of his ears.

The astrophysicist ignored him. "Amy, please. I promise you'll have fun. I am getting a whole beauty thing done that day in Beverly Hills you can come with me and I'll buy you a dress." Raj tempted, "Don't make me sit alone!"

"All right. I'll go."

Sheldon frowned, "You can't."

"Why? Bernadette or Penny would be expected to go it if they hadn't won at "not it". It isn't a big deal and Raj has been threatening to take me to his spa for a while now. It isn't a date. It is a combination of threat fulfillment and community service."

"It is a violation of the relationship agreement."

"That depends entirely on your reading of the document. I believe this occurrence falls under the section "sparing Sheldon annoyances within the social group." That section states that I am required to make every effort to ensure that you don't have to listen to the bleating of sheep on nonsensical issues." She turned to Raj, "If I am not mistaken, if I don't do this for Raj…"

"I am going to follow Sheldon around bleating my damn head off." Raj smiled evilly, sipping his beer.

"Fine." Sheldon said, trying to project a calm he didn't feel. "but you ladies need to buckle down and find Raj an acceptable girlfriend."

"No argument from me, dude. Part of the reason I keep doing in this is in the hope they get sick of me. And find me a lady."

"We have our parameters. But it is hard work finding a wealthy, nubile, Indian woman living in greater Los Angeles with crippling mental illness, an advanced degree and that certain level of intense desperation..." Amy stated, "The pool of candidates is smaller than you'd think."

Shopping with Raj was fun. He was rich. After a couple of drinks, he was an amusing conversationalist. And he had great taste.

"Raj, Penny and Bernadette have tried to give me make overs, nothing works." Amy sighed.

"They can't dress a woman like you. With all due respect, you are a successful scientist, Bernadette needs to dress more like you if she wants to get ahead in her career. She is tiny, she sounds like the girl singer from Alvin and the Chipmunks. A stout pair of loafers and a scowl might be her best friend. And Penny relies only on her good looks. If you look at the way she dresses, her choices? If she wasn't attractive, it would be absolutely appalling. She buys things on sale without trying them on and I must presume she gets dressed in the dark. A lot." Raj was in brutally honest mode. "You dress like in the manner you do because it tells the world you are serious as a heart attack. And for business, brava. But we need to also show off the fabulous babe that lurks within, at least on evenings and weekends. We can certainly tweak your professional image a little. But on your own time…you need to be a little softer looking, you have pretty hair and eyes, your complexion is lovely, we can accentuate that." He pointed to the dressing room, where the selections loomed. "We begin."

The beauty appointment was also the scene of tough love. "You must throw out the flat iron." Raj stated.

"I can't, the humidity… It will frizz up like a clown wig." Amy warned grasping her straight locks with a panicked expression.

"Not with this length," the stylist noted, "We'll give you some layers. For your facial shape, you should consider a pony tail for day to day wear."

"I've had bad experiences with pony tails. I work with primates."

"Tuck it down the back of your shirt." The stylist over ruled her, without sympathy, "Also we'll get you some product to tame the frizz."

By the time, she left the spa, Amy felt like she'd finally been given advice she could use. As she dressed for the night, with her stylist and her makeup artist dancing in attendance, saying things like, "Fierce!" she felt pretty, light, pampered. Young. And rich. And like she was about to fight in the Hunger Games…

Her dress was modest. And it was something she could wear again. It was a spring green worsted wool, with ¾ sleeves. It showed off her waist and what Raj and her styling team called her "Rocking Ass". The makeup was subtle. She still looked like herself, but a version of herself that had, at long last, gotten enough sleep.

Raj looked at her with approval, "We need to tweet this." He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of her. Amy smiled tolerantly. "Let's go."

The tweet accompanying the pic was, "Sheldon, she is mine now…. Bwhahaha."

The dinner had been better than either party had anticipated. Raj learned what Leonard, Penny and Bernadette had told him to be true. One on one, Amy was a hoot. She liked to dance, she was open to Karaoke and she didn't pout. Now she looked very pretty to boot. Raj considered falling in love with her, but Bernadette and Penny had laid down the law, on that issue. "She is your friend's girlfriend. You may not love her nor profess to love her. This one time… Raj, do not make it weird!"

Fine, he wouldn't make it weird. But that didn't stop him from texting Sheldon pictures of himself with Amy with captions such as, "The future Rani to my Raja," and "Smokin'!" And then a series of pictures each captioned with one line from the love theme from "Footloose."

Raj had promised not to make things weird with Amy. He had not promised not to torture Sheldon.

Sheldon sat on Amy's couch, having a low grade panic attack He'd broken into her apartment to await her return. The never ending series of texts depicting a tarted up Amy having an increasingly better and better time with exponentially more smug Rajesh… He stood up when he heard voices outside the door.

"Thank you for spending so much money on me." Amy said, as they arrived at the door. "It led to quite a lovely evening."

"It was nothing," Raj waved off her thanks. "I enjoyed myself."

Knock knock knock "Amy"; Knock knock knock "Amy"; Knock knock knock "Amy"; the door opened, "Let's wrap it up out there." Frowning, Amy sighed, "Night Raj." and entered her apartment.

She turned around and faced her boyfriend, frown fully intact, "You broke into my apartment. Again." She stated. "Sheldon, I have so few rules… Can you at pretend you care about them or at least act like you know what they are?"

"It is past midnight." Sheldon ignored her, folding his arms over his chest.

"It isn't a school night, Ma." Amy sat down on the couch.

Sheldon sat next to her. A little closer than usual. "Raj kept texting pictures of you to me." He paused. Took a deep breath and kissed her.

The kiss was chaste yet tense. Amy responded for five seconds before pushing him back with a frown. "No."

"No?" he looked frightened.

"Not like this." She said, firmly, "You don't want to. So not like this."

"How do you know I don't want to?" now he sounded annoyed. He actually had wanted to kiss her. He certainly didn't want anyone else to kiss her.

"You are only kissing me because you are angry at Raj. Anger made you anxious and fearful. I don't want that. It is negative." She slid away from him, "I only want you to kiss me if it will make you happy."

"You sound like a hippy."

"Not at all. I don't want to cheat to get what I want. You are annoyed that I had fun with Raj? Sorry, pal, deal with it. It wasn't romantic. It was like an episode of What Not to Wear, but Raj didn't make me cry." She leaned her head on the back of the couch and frowned, "have you noticed anything about my experiments?"

"Yes, they are distracting."

"But do you enjoy them? Are they fun?" she asked.

"Yes."

"So kiss me when we are having fun." She smiled, getting up off the couch and pointing at the door. "Now get out of my apartment."

"It is one in the morning!" Sheldon got to his feet, "you have to drive me."

"No, I do not. I didn't invite you here." She folded her arms over her chest. "Call a cab."

"At this time of the morning?" Sheldon looked confused. "Let me stay here."

"Nope." Amy held her ground. "The last time you slept on my sofa, all you did was bitch for the next week. "Good Lord, woman, did you stuff it with rocks just for me?""

Sheldon stared at her for a second. He looked at his shoes. "I could stay in your room." He looked shocked at the suggestion as it left his lips, then clarified, "No funny business."

"I have refused to kiss you, what makes you think that either funny business or co-sleeping is on the table?" This was starting to get interesting. She had to get him smiling. "I have a counter proposal."

"I'm listening," Sheldon's head was spinning from being rejected on the kissing front and having her scoff at the mention of funny business and the implication of platonic sleeping.

"Slumber party."

"Define."

Amy pointed to the kitchen, "We watch a movie, eat crap, I sleep on the couch and you take my sleeping bag on the floor."

"No funny business."

"Define funny business." Amy commanded. She normally didn't embark on topics with no other purpose than to make his head explode, but he seemed fixated on funny business.

His face went beet red. He didn't answer.

"Sheldon, there is no clause in the relationship agreement referring to or defining funny business. If you wish me to refrain from said business or, alternatively, to prevent you from initiating the same, I need context. For example, if put on my Marvin the Martian sleep shirt or recommend that we watch Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network…."

"Actually, both those things sound acceptable. Do you still have my overnight bag?" Sheldon wanted to end this line of questioning.

"Of course. I will change first while you begin planning our junk food strategy." Amy turned and went to her room, purposefully leaving the door a jar. Actually, she had been saving the Marvin sleep shirt for a serious seduction event, but now she was disappointed to use it for this… Sheldon seemed quite vulnerable. If she had wanted to push it, she might have been able to initiate coitus. When that became the main goal all she would have to do was walk out of there in her Starfleet uniform and no tights, she could close that deal. But it was more important to stick to the protocols and the guiding principle of the experiment.

Whatever else, she must act with consideration to his emotional safety and with kindness. Any physical act would ideally be initiated by him in a moment of happiness not stress. So she would endeavor to make the rest of the evening fun. Also, the cruel shapewear beneath her dress had undoubtedly bruised the beejesus out of her.

Sheldon felt disappointed. For the past weeks, he had begun to consider expanding his physical relationship with Amy. If he wanted her to remain as his girlfriend, which he did, he didn't know if he could avoid it much longer. He had spent most of the time between breaking in and her arriving home, trying to think his way out of having to kiss her, but he'd been unable to do so. He had worked himself up to do it. He had set up the parameters in his mind, no groping, light tongue, kiss duration 30 seconds. The only parameter that had been met was no groping and that had been the parameter he was prepared to negotiate. Now he felt what Amy described as twitchy.

There was only one conclusion, before sleep happened, he was going to get 25 seconds more of kissing with tongue action out of that vixen.

Her bedroom door was open. For some reason this irritated him. A bedroom should be more separated from the living area. Even though she lived alone, there should be no way for a visitor to stand at her ever so slightly ajar bedroom door and see the light from her bathroom shining on her velvety bedspread and ridiculous wealth of coordinating decorative pillows.

Also, her bathroom had two entrances. Sheldon knew this was California, but there should still design concept. This apartment's designer clearly had a weak bladder and no sense of propriety.

As soon as there was an opening in his building, her application was going in. If for no other reason, that he should have some way to storm over to her house, say his peace and get home without having to beg for a ride or risk life and limb, not to mention seething cauldron of contamination, in the back of a taxi cab.

"Holy God!" he heard Amy cry out. "Oh, yeah!"

"What?" Sheldon cried back, startled.

She laughed, "Just divesting myself of the Spanx!" He heard her sigh, then start talking in a louder, gayer voice, ""Girl! Your ass is amazing. Let's imprison it in industrial grade spandex!" The beauty process is so counter intuitive." She lamented.

"Are you drunk?" Sheldon frowned, leaning against the door jamb, "Because that will inform the herbal tea choices."

Amy appeared wearing the aforementioned Marvin The Martian sleep shirt. It was the same green as the dress she had been wearing, but more modestly cut around the body and much shorter. "Bathroom is yours." She smiled walking past him into the kitchen. The nightie came down to her mid-thigh, Sheldon noticed. And when she reached for the glasses on the top shelf…

White panties.

He fled into the bathroom, closing and locking both the bedroom door and the bathroom door behind him, pausing only to grab the duffle bag marked "Emergency" from her closet. Sheldon panted shallowly, trying to find something to comfort him.

Amy's bathroom was very tidy. He knew she replaced her towels and bathroom rugs quarterly. Her shower curtain lacked he whimsy of the periodic table, instead being a plain white. Clean and white. Like her panties.

Oh, yeah. This would be fun.

When he finally emerged after a bracing shower where he purposefully relieved taking Howard's mother dress shopping over and over again, he found her setting snacks on the coffee table. She looked up at him and smiled, "Nightly ablutions satisfactorily completed?" she inquired. He pressed his lips together and nodded, sitting primly across from her on the sofa. Amy pushed past his sudden silence, "Please help yourself to snacks. The beverage of choice tonight will be Yoohoo, with the possibility of root beer floats later…"

Sheldon grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into his lap.

He kissed her from 25 seconds. With light to moderate tongue.

When he released her, she returned to her seat with wide eyes. "I had to." He explained, "I'd been planning to kiss you for 30 seconds so I had to."

"Oh." Amy nodded.

"Now I can enjoy the slumber party."

"I see." The glassy eyed nodding continued as she handed him his glass of delicious, beckoning YooHoo. "You were planning on kissing me? How long were you planning to kiss me?"

"I had been thinking on it a while, I only decided to proceed this evening when I got the picture text with the associated lyric "I feared my heart would beat in secrecy…" seeing Amy look confused, he clarified, "Raj sent me a series of picture texts, each captioned with a line from the love theme from Footloose."

Amy chuckled, "that rascal. Which picture was it?"

"The one where he licked the salt off your margarita glass." Sheldon said suddenly feeling twitchy.

"What? Gross! When?" He felt gratified by her look of sudden disgust. "That's it. Consider me in a perpetual state of "NOT IT!" with regards to mercy dates."

Sheldon smiled, grabbing his messenger bag. He handed her a legal document, "I've written an amendment to that effect. I've also notified Leonard that the roommate agreement should be amended to protect our female compatriots from being compelled to serve as a platonic, unpaid escort service for the unattached dregs of the subcontinent."

"To be fair, he did spend almost 3000 dollars on me today. Any decent escort would have let him lick something besides her margarita glass." Amy took a sip of her YooHoo.

Sheldon picked up his phone and clicked a picture of his sleep shirt clad girlfriend as she clicked on Adult Swim without her knowing it. Swiftly, he texted it to Raj. "MINE!"

A/N: Still on vacation. This little plot bunny wanted to go for a run though.