May 18th, 2013

Penny had barely shut the door behind her when she heard the door to 4A open and close across the hall. Footsteps approached her door and then the familiar rhythm of Sheldon Cooper was pounding at her back.

Knock knock knock, "Penny?"

Knock knock knock, "Penny?"

Knock knock knock, "Penny?"

While she waited for him to complete his ritual, she kicked her work flats off her grateful feet. Eight excruciatingly long hours of Saturday madness had proven tiring for her throbbing legs but profitable for her wallet. Unfortunately the paycheck she set on the table next to her door would almost entirely disappear, split off into pieces to pay the bills she had stacked underneath it.

Oh the joys of career waitressing.

After his last "Penny" she swung the door open, barely glancing at the tall man clutching his laundry basket on her doormat before turning into her apartment and picking discarded sweaters and socks off the back of her sofa. "Good evening, Penny," he said formally, frowning after her as he craned his neck to follow her with his gaze. "As usual, you are running late." It was more an observation than an accusation but she still groaned aloud.

Sheldon knew nothing of shitty managers or perpetually late coworkers and the thought did little to comfort Penny. His enormous brain only had room for quarks and particles and the fibers of the universe. His big head (and bigger ego) could never fully wrap itself around the trials and tribulations of the service industry.

"Hey, Sheldon," she answered with exasperation, disappearing into her bedroom with her arms overflowing with clothing. "Give me a second to change," she called out from her bathroom as Sheldon delicately entered her apartment, studying the disarray with disdain.

Penny shucked off her work clothes and added them to the pile in her laundry basket, waiting for Sheldon's remarks on the messiness of her apartment but instead he only called out to her, "How was your day at work, Penny," in an unmistakably strained voice. She narrowed her eyes as she pulled her tank top over her head and hefted her laundry basket through the doorway. Sheldon wasn't one for pleasantries. Something wasup.

She observed him skeptically as she answered, "Not terrible. Not great either but I guess I can't complain..." His eyes were darting around between the collection of mostly empty cup noodles on the coffee table and the haphazard pile of magazines stacked next to the couch. She watched as a muscle in his jaw bone tensed and the fingers holding up his basket flexed, but instead of saying the words she could see forming in his over-large brain, he visibly swallowed them as he turned his gaze back to her.

"Ah, you're ready. And only four minutes late. A new record," he said flatly before leading the way out her door and down the stairs, Penny shuffling behind him.

Penny wasn't quite sure when it happened but sometime over the last six years, she had become a regular participant of Sheldon's scheduled Laundry Night. It had happened by accident at first. They'd run into each other in the laundry room every once in a while and chat a little. She didn't understand half of what he said but teasing him was pleasant enough to sway her into choosing Saturday nights for her bi-monthly attempt at laundry.

As her relationships with the gang next door developed and her previous group of friends slowly lost contact, Laundry Night on Saturday with Sheldon became something she looked forward to. It wasn't nearly as fun as drinking herself stupid and dancing away at some bar, but waking up on Sunday wasn't nearly as shameful when the worst part of the night before was watching Time Cop at her neighbor's place. She started doing her laundry every weekend and she slowly learned how to decipher a good portion of the gibber-jabber that poured from Sheldon's mouth.

Despite the regularity that had developed, she had no idea what she had slowly eased herself into until one Saturday she figured she'd skip. Absorbed in a Top Model marathon she had completely ignored the collection of dirty clothes littered around her apartment, but Sheldon came knocking on her door at 8:20, outraged that she had broken his regimen. That night he himself had swept around her apartment, collecting her dirty clothes and shoving her out the door.

After that he came every Saturday to collect her before descending the stairs.

It was a strange little ritual that she had been absorbed into, but it was oddly centering. A lot of other parts of Sheldon's ridiculous schedule drove her crazy but with this one at least she was guaranteed clean clothes. Besides, the alone time with him was kind of fun. Without Leonard or the other boys around, she had begun to notice she could weasel more out of him than he would otherwise be comfortable sharing.

It made him infinitely more endearing to her when she realized he came to her when he had questions none of the boys could answer.

While they piled their clothes into the washing machine (she shoved, he artfully arranged), she studied him out of the corner of her eye. He was standing stiffly, even for Sheldon, and once he caught her looking at him his blue eyes danced around the room as they always did when he was nervous.

While Sheldon was turned away, she nabbed his softener and poured some into her washer. She frequently borrowed his laundry supplies when she ran out and hadn't remembered to buy more, and though he usually complained in a somewhat resigned way, he only pursed his lips when he caught her returning the softener out of the corner of his eye.

Yup, she thought to herself as her eyes narrowed onto his scrawny figure, he definitely wanted something.

Sure enough once the lids were closed and the quarters slid into place, he stood facing her with his hands behind his back while she hopped up on top of the rumbling machine.

"Penny," he started very seriously.

"Sheldon," she answered equally seriously, unable to stop herself from teasing him.

He abruptly stopped and narrows his eyes at her in warning. She had to struggle to contain her smile before he opened his mouth to continue. "With Leonard's recent departure, I've come to realize his absence might be more of a hindrance than I originally anticipated."

"Oh, sweetie, do you miss your little buddy?" she asked with a grin. He wasn't the only one, she thought with an internal groan. It had only been two nights and she was already feeling lonely. Without his company during dinner, her apartment seemed strangely quiet while she slurped down her meals of cup noodles.

And without Leonard's monetary help, cup noodles would be most of her meals for a few months. She sighed heavily.

"Hardly," Sheldon scoffed and Penny's thoughts were derailed. "I simply recognize that without his menial skills, my weekly routines have shifted in a way I am not at all happy with."

Penny's face scrunched up as she mentally interpreted his wordy nonsense. "You mean you miss him driving you around?" she asked with a sigh, a little disappointed.

"Exactly," Sheldon nodded, frustrated. "I find my schedule greatly disrupted." His words curled with just a twinge of Texas drawl.

Penny slumped in her seat on the washing machine and sighed. "Me too," she added for good measure and was surprised to see Sheldon's blue eyes appraising her from where he hovered near the table. He sharply looked down when she caught his eye and fidgeted with the edge of the table.

Speaking to floor he began, "I had suspected you might be in a somewhat parallel quandary." His eyes darted to her and then in a million other directions, but despite his uncertainty, he took three solid steps in her direction and stopped with his hands behind his back, facing her head on.

Penny only stared back perplexed, waiting for him to get to whatever point this whole conversation had been aiming towards.

Sheldon, guessing that Penny needed further explaining, continued, "For example, your diet must be suffering with Leonard's absence, seeing as he is responsible for paying for the majority of your meals."

"Hey, don't call him my meal-ticket," she grumbled, but a part of her mind, or rather her stomach, couldn't deny the man's point. She was already beginning to suspect that the human body couldn't run on re-hydrated noodles and packets of seasoning for as long as Leonard would be gone.

"And furthermore," he spoke over her, "you are likely feeling the lack of human interaction I know you to be dependent on. With our comfortable group split up by pair-bonds, and with your partner missing, you undoubtedly feel that you have become the odd man out."

"Hey! Raj doesn't have a pair-bond either. I'm not to only odd man out..." but she trailed off feeling dejected. She also couldn't help but feel that Sheldon really needed to learn how to soften his blows.

Sheldon only continued on as if he hasn't been interrupted. "In consideration of these events, I have come to offer you a deal."

Penny quirked up an eyebrow as she mulled that over. She had to admit, she was a little intrigued. If Sheldon was offering her a solution to her shitty meals and lonliness, it could either be utterly brilliant or terribly offensive. Maybe both. She braced herself for the worst. "What kind of deal?"

Sheldon cleared his throat and stood up straighter. "In exchange for taking over Leonard's post-work related duties, I will, until Leonard's return, pay for any meal you eat in my company."

Her stomach gave a somewhat audible growl at that point (which Sheldon noted with a slight look of amusement) but she ignored it as she pushed herself off the dryer to look dubiously into Sheldon's face. He was looking down at her with the blank, open expression of expectation. She crossed her arms.

"Post-work related duties," she mulled aloud. "What kind of duties?"

"Driving me to the comic book store or wherever else my errands dictate, picking up take-out, eradicating any errant creepy-crawlies, or whatever else I require and cannot perform on my own."

"And after doing all that, all I get is a few lousy dinners?" She already knew she was going to say yes, it wasn't like she had anything better to do, but Sheldon was a terrible negotiator and she wanted to see exactly how much she could get out of this.

"Not just a few dinners, Penny. Any meal you eat with me."

"So you'd quit griping about me coming over and stealing your food?"

"Until Leonard's return, yes."

"And if we all get take-out, you'll pay my share?"

"Yes, so long as you make yourself available to run errands with me."

"And you'll pay for gas...?"

He looked genuinely thoughtful a moment as if that thought hadn't occurred to him. "...I suppose that's fair." He turned his gaze to her expectantly.

She stared at him open mouthed for a second before snapping it closed and pulling a skeptical face. "I don't know, Sheldon..." she said leadingly. "I've still got to work so it's not like I'd be around all the time."

He grimaced and his left eye just barely twitched when he replied, "I am aware of your schedule, Penny, and am willing to make... concessions... in my own to accommodate your work routine."

"What about Amy? I bet she'd love spending time with you." From what Penny gathered from the bespectacled brunnette, Amy would give up all of her free time for nothing in return but the pleasure of Sheldon's company.

"Unfortunately Amy's work is reaching a critical juncture and she hasn't the time to cater to my needs. Besides, even with the inconvenience of your inconsistent shifts, you are the most viable candidate for filling in Leonard's position as you are nearest to my home."

Penny only lifted her eyebrow and tilted her head, giving him a long hard stare. He returned with a heavy glare of his own and Penny found herself wondering if he wasn't as much of a push-over as Leonard had claimed when Sheldon grumbled out, "And I'll throw in the WiFi, too."

Penny visibly brightened. "You won't change the password on me?" she asked, disbelievingly. He had gotten into the habit of changing it every Monday, seemingly just so she would have to come over to ask for it. He always offered it to her when she asked, she didn't even have to say 'please,' but the smug look and snarky combinations of 'Penny Is a Freeloader' drove her a little crazy.

With how much he obviously enjoyed toying with her over the WiFi, it was hard to imagine him giving up that small pleasure.

"Not until Leonard returns," he answered.

Internally, Penny celebrated.

"Okay," Penny said aloud, trying to fight the smile forming on her own face.

Sheldon blinked heavily, surprised. "Okay? You mean you consent?" He returned to his laundry basket to dig out a folder she hadn't seen, concealed underneath his clothing.

A stoke of genius struck Penny. "Yeah Sheldon, I consent, but I have one more condition." He turned to look at her sternly and she hastily added, "Don't worry, it won't cost you anything."

"Everything has a price," he replied suspiciously, and she was sure that what she was asking him for would cost him more dearly than any monetary stipulation she could have made.

"When you ask for a ride, or for company, or for me to pick up your damn Thai food, I want you to say 'Please' and 'Thank you.'" she let that sink in a moment. "Every time."

With the look of shock and horror that painted his face, she may as well have asked for his virginity.

"Penny! That's just ridiculous! Every single time?"

"Yes, you big weirdo!" She said loudly over the rant she suspected he was building up. "And in exchange, every time we eat a meal or you put gas in my tank I will thank you as well."

"Absurd," Sheldon answered flatly.

"Sheldon, everyone else on the planet know how to be polite except you."

"That is a vast over-exaggeration and besides, next to no one on this planet even comes within light years of my intellectual abilities."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're a genius. But sometimes it pays to be a little nice."

Distaste was written strongly across his pale features but he swallowed heavily, his adam's apple bobbing.

"What do you say, Sheldon. Do we have a deal?"

He huffed heavily and turned. For a moment, Penny was sure he had given up, refusing to meet her demands, but he only pulled a packet of papers out of the folder in his laundry basket. He dug around in his pocket for a pen and began scribbling angrily on the last page using the rattling washing machine as a desk.

"What is that?" Penny asked, peering around his arm to see a page covered in small type. She had seen enough of Sheldon's various Relationship Agreements brandished by him throughout the apartment to recognize the format. She rolled her eyes and groaned. "I'm not signing that, Sheldon," she stated flatly and his arms danced erratically as he twirled frantically to face her.

"Penny, this is crucial to our agreement. How else are we to be certain of the terms of our arrangement?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe we could talk to each other, you know, like people."

He huffed heavily and began shaking his head. "That is unacceptable. You may live life flying by the seat of your pants but I function under a higher construct in which this," he brandished the alarmingly thick packet, "insures all parties are equally informed."

"Then I guess we don't have a deal," she answered with a shrug.

Sheldon sputtered to a stop, opening his mouth to speak but only a disgruntled noise came out. He repeated the process twice more but Penny remained unmoved, staring into his face with the simplicity of apathy. She watched while he degenerated into a scowling, twitching mess as he muttered words like 'ridiculous' and 'hillbilly' under his breath.

"...but Penny!" he whined after a full two minutes of her silence.

"No buts. I've seen enough of your contracts to know you only use those things to screw everyone else into doing what you want." Her washing machine rumbled to a stop and she stepped away from an open mouthed Sheldon, dragging her wet clothes out of the washer in handfuls and chucking them into an open dryer.

Sheldon stood back to give her room to move about but he hadn't given up the fight yet. He straightened himself and clenched his fist at his sides. He had suspected she might put up a fight but he never imagined it would be over something so indisputable as the very contract he'd carefully worded to properly insure she was under his thumb. That was, after all, where he liked people best.

"My contracts are to insure that everyone knows precisely what is expected of them in any possible situation. They are created with the sole intention of easing relations between two parties. If what I want just so happens to be the right thing to want, that is purely incidental." Penny shot him an exasperated look over her shoulder which he pointedly ignored in favor of attending to his own laundry.

Penny slammed the dryer closed and paced back to Sheldon's side, leaning on her vacated washing machine and peering into his face while he carefully collected his wet laundry one article at time and placed them into his basket.

"I don't want a piece of paper telling me how to behave," she said simply. "Especially not if I'm already going to be bending over backwards to chauffeur you around."

Sheldon's eyebrows drew together as he pulled out the last of his wet clothing and carried the basket to the empty dryer next to the one Penny had filled. Penny followed him, a step behind.

"When a problem comes up, especially if it's with someone you are close to, you're supposed to talk about it, not refer to 'section seven dash one' to force your own way."

"That sounds awfully inefficient," Sheldon replied hotly from where he was crouched on the ground, arranging his clothes into the dryer.

Penny laughed. She had the distinct feeling she had the upper hand. When she had refused to sign the contract, she thought it might take a few days of him adamantly demanding she conform to his neurotic behavior before he finally gave up, but now she was thinking it might not take so long at all.

"It's not," Penny answered cheerily. "In fact, it works out far better for everyone involved."

"You mean it works out better for you," he answered tartly but she grinned while ramming her quarters into the coin slot and pulling herself up onto the dryer.

"No way, brainiack. You're the only one whose always trying to pull one over on everyone you know," she replied with a raised eyebrow, her legs swinging merrily below her and Sheldon frowned. "I'm perfectly capable of taking your feelings into account, which is much much more than I could say for you."

Sheldon looked momentarily troubled as he processed her statement. It alarmed him to hear that Penny thought he was inconsiderate. He was perfectly aware that the nuances of social interactions weren't as clear to him than they were everyone else but he wasn't at all pleased to hear that his shortcomings resulted in hurt feelings.

He had rather thought he'd gotten the hang of social interactions. He had a best friend/room mate who didn't (frequently) threaten to kill him, he had a group of like-minded friends, he had a smart, capable girlfriend, and he even had a Penny, whatever exactly she was. He was regularly surrounded by people that he didn't entirely despise and to him, those were things he had never before imagined possible.

He had imagined his naturally superior intellect led him to be successful in all tasks he took up be it the complexities of theoretical physics or the simplicity of making friends, but Penny's comment sent a jolt of unease to his core. She was, he grudgingly conceded, the local expert on human interactions.

He swallowed dryly and unfurrowed his eyebrows. With a deft push, his own coins clinked into the machine and he returned to his customary stance with his arms behind his back. Penny grinned at him knowingly and his left eye twitched.

"Then how does the simpleminded populous officiate a deal?" he asked, frustrated. The thought of forsaking a perfect opportunity to loop Penny into a contract sent his facial muscles into a frenzy but he fought it down. After all, you couldn't convince an ape to sign paperwork; you had to appeal to them in their own language. Besides, Sheldon Cooper wasn't one to crumple under a challenge.

Penny's grin stretched even further and her eyes twinkled in the way that made Sheldon's stomach uncomfortably clench. She firmly reached out a hand and Sheldon studied it warily.

"I agree to fulfill Leonard's duties to the best of my abilities," she stated strongly, an expectant look turned up to meet his gaze.

After a moment in which he debated what fresh hell he was condemning himself to, he wrapped his long fingers around her small hand. It surprised her to find his grip so sturdy.

"...And I agree," Sheldon began reluctantly, "to provide you with meals, WiFi, and gas..." he ended flatly and tried to pull his hand away but Penny held firm.

"And..." she said leadingly and Sheldon huffed.

"...And to make my requests politely and thank you in return for your efforts..." he mumbled unhappily but Penny looked thrilled. She shook his hand firmly twice before releasing him from her grip, his hand strangely cold in its absence. Unconsciously he clenched and unclenched his hand behind his back.

But Penny was laughing, pulling her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. "So what's first, Sheldon?" she asked merrily, her eyes twinkling again.

He suspected she knew exactly what came on Sunday but for some maddening reason, she always asked.

"Paintball," he answered simply, his hand tingling behind his back.

"Oh! Does that mean I get to play?" she asked with a somewhat malicious smile and Sheldon had a hard time keeping the corners of his mouth from lifting up.