Chapter 3: The Catchphrase Slip
"You can't just disappear, Penelope!"
Penny pressed the phone harder against her ear, pacing the narrow strip of hardwood between her couch and coffee table. Marcus's voice carried the particular edge that meant he'd moved past frustrated and landed squarely in panic territory.
"Watch me," she shot back, but her voice lacked conviction. Three days of radio silence had apparently pushed her agent past his breaking point.
"The studio is asking questions. Your co-stars are asking questions. Entertainment Tonight called my office yesterday wanting to know if you're in rehab!"
"Tell them I'm finding myself."
"You're contractually obligated to find yourself at next week's charity gala. Black tie, red carpet, cameras—"
A knock on her door cut through Marcus's increasingly shrill demands. Penny froze, phone still pressed to her ear, staring at the wood grain as if it might reveal who was on the other side.
"I have to go," she whispered into the phone.
"Penelope, don't you dare hang up on me again. We need to discuss—"
She ended the call and shoved the phone into her back pocket, taking a steadying breath before opening the door.
Leonard stood in the hallway, flanked by two men she didn't recognize. His smile was warm and slightly apologetic, the same expression he'd worn when Sheldon had interrogated her about bowling trophies.
"Hey," he said. "Sorry to bother you, but I wanted you to meet my friends. This is Howard Wolowitz and Raj Koothrappali."
Howard was shorter than Leonard, with a bowl cut that belonged in a different decade and a leather jacket that probably belonged in a different galaxy. His eyes swept over her with the kind of obvious assessment that made Penny's skin crawl.
Raj stood slightly behind the others, dark-skinned and handsome in a quiet way, but he wasn't looking at her directly. Instead, his gaze seemed fixed on a point somewhere past her left shoulder.
"Pleasure to meet you," Howard said, stepping forward with what he clearly thought was charm but came across more like a predator sizing up prey. "Leonard's told us absolutely nothing about you, which means either you're incredibly mysterious or he's incredibly selfish."
"Oh God," Penny thought, recognizing the type immediately. "It's going to be one of THOSE guys."
"Hi," she managed, glancing past Howard to where Raj was making rapid hand gestures. Sign language, she realized. "Nice to meet you both."
Howard's grin widened, and Penny felt her stomach drop. She'd seen that expression before—on casting directors, on producers, on anyone who thought her face was her only valuable asset.
"Hey baby," Howard said, his voice dropping into what he probably thought was a seductive register. "Are you a parking ticket? Because you've got 'fine' written all over you."
The silence that followed was so complete Penny could hear the hum of the fluorescent light in the hallway. Raj covered his face with both hands, his shoulders shaking with what might have been laughter or horror. Leonard looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.
But it was Sheldon's voice that broke the spell.
"That metaphor is structurally unsound," he said, appearing behind the group with his notebook already in hand. "Parking tickets don't typically include appearance-based commentary, and the comparison suggests that being financially penalized for a municipal violation is somehow desirable."
Penny's smile felt frozen on her face. She'd heard every pickup line in existence—from sleazy agents, from entitled co-stars, from fans who thought they were being clever. The words usually rolled off her like water, but something about Howard's delivery, about the casual assumption that she'd be flattered by such obvious garbage, triggered something deeper than annoyance.
Her body moved before her brain could intervene.
"Stakes through hearts, not hearts through stakes," she said, the words coming out with her character's signature delivery—crisp, confident, with just enough danger to make it interesting.
The hallway went silent again, but this time the quality of the silence was different. Heavy. Loaded.
Howard blinked, his practiced charm faltering. "What?"
"Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit."
Penny felt the blood drain from her face as she realized what she'd just done. Three years of playing Penelope Queen, three years of delivering that line in dozens of different contexts, had embedded it so deeply in her muscle memory that it had emerged automatically when confronted with unwanted male attention.
"It's... it's something I heard somewhere," she stammered, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle even to her own ears. "Like, a saying. About... about not letting things get to your heart? Or something?"
Raj's hands had gone still, and for the first time since arriving, he was looking directly at her. His dark eyes were sharp, calculating, and Penny felt a chill run down her spine.
"Interesting vampire-hunting principle," Sheldon mused, making a note. "Though tactically questionable. Wooden stakes are effective against the undead specifically because they're designed to penetrate the heart. Reversing the methodology would presumably—"
"You know what," Penny interrupted, stepping back and gesturing for them to come inside. "You guys want something to drink? I was just about to open a bottle of wine."
The deflection worked. Howard's predatory interest shifted to her apartment as he stepped inside, his gaze cataloging the expensive furniture and electronics with obvious approval. Leonard followed more carefully, his expression still slightly confused.
"This is nice," Leonard said, settling onto the edge of her couch when she gestured toward it. "Really nice. Great decorating."
"Thanks." Penny busied herself in the kitchen area, grateful for the chance to turn away from Raj's continued scrutiny. "I'm not much of a decorator, really. Just picked stuff that looked... normal."
She retrieved glasses from the cabinet, hyperaware of every movement, every word. The slip with the catchphrase had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. If Sheldon—who noticed everything—could dismiss it as random oddness, she might be safe. But Raj...
Raj was still watching her.
"So what do you guys do?" she asked, settling into the chair across from the couch. Safe distance from Leonard's distracting presence, clear view of all potential threats.
"We work at Caltech," Leonard said. "I'm an experimental physicist, Howard's an aerospace engineer, and Raj is an astrophysicist."
"And I," Sheldon added, claiming the spot on the couch next to Leonard, "am a theoretical physicist working on string theory. My research focuses on the mathematical frameworks that govern the fundamental forces of—"
"What about you?" Howard interrupted, his attention focused on Penny with renewed intensity. "What's your story? Besides being mysteriously lucky with radio contests."
"He talked to Leonard about the TV. Of course he did."
"I'm a waitress," Penny said, which was technically true as of yesterday when she'd finally worked up the courage to apply at the Cheesecake Factory. "Just moved here from Nebraska. Looking for a fresh start."
"Nebraska," Leonard repeated, and something in his voice made her look up. He was smiling, but it was softer than his usual expression. "That must have been a big change. Moving to LA."
"Yeah," Penny said, and for a moment she forgot to perform, forgot to calculate her response. "It's... different. Everything's so fast here. So calculated. Back home, people just... they are who they are, you know?"
Raj signed something to Howard, rapid gestures that Howard responded to with a slight shake of his head. Penny caught herself staring, trying to decode their silent conversation.
"Raj wants to know if you miss it," Howard translated. "Nebraska."
"Sometimes," Penny admitted. "Mostly I miss how simple everything was. Here, it feels like everyone's always performing, always trying to be someone they're not."
The irony of her words hit her even as she spoke them, but Leonard's understanding nod made her chest tighten with guilt.
"I know what you mean," he said. "It's hard to find genuine people in a place where everyone's chasing something."
Howard made another terrible joke about physics and attraction, but this time Penny barely registered it. She was too caught up in the way Leonard looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention, like she was something worth figuring out.
They stayed for another hour, the conversation meandering through work stories and shared interests. Howard's advances became less aggressive and more genuinely friendly as the wine worked its magic. Sheldon documented several of her responses in his notebook, but his attention seemed scattered across multiple fascinations rather than focused on any particular inconsistency.
But Raj kept watching. Kept signing quick, pointed messages to Howard that made Howard frown and shake his head.
When they finally left, Leonard lingered in the doorway.
"Thanks for the wine," he said. "And for putting up with Howard. He means well, he just... doesn't always land the execution."
"It's fine," Penny said, meaning it more than she expected. Despite the rocky start, she'd enjoyed herself. It had been years since she'd sat around talking with people who didn't want something from her.
"Maybe we can do it again sometime," Leonard said, his voice hopeful. "I mean, if you want. No pressure."
After the door closed behind them, Penny immediately went to her laptop and opened an incognito browser window. Her fingers moved without conscious thought, typing the words that had betrayed her earlier.
"Stakes through hearts not hearts through stakes"
The search returned 2.4 million results.
YouTube compilations titled "Penelope Queen's Best One-Liners." T-shirts with the phrase printed in gothic font. TikTok videos of teenagers reenacting the delivery. Memes that had evolved the phrase into a dozen different contexts, all still clearly traceable to her character's signature line.
Penny scrolled through pages of results, her heart sinking with each click. The phrase wasn't just popular—it was iconic. Anyone who'd watched her show would recognize it instantly. The fact that Sheldon had dismissed it as vampire-hunting advice and Howard had seemed genuinely confused was either a miracle or a sign that they lived even more deeply in their academic bubble than she'd realized.
She cleared her browser history and closed the laptop, but Leonard's laugh still echoed in her mind. The way he'd looked at her when she talked about missing home, like he understood something fundamental about her that she'd forgotten herself.
"I want to hear that laugh again," she realized, and the thought terrified her more than any Google search results ever could.
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