Sunday morning, Penny woke up with graphite still smudged on her wrist from last night's penciling marathon. Twenty-two completed comic pages sat neatly stacked on her desk, but for once she wasn't thinking about them.
She was thinking about Sheldon.
Specifically: the way he'd paused over her artwork.
The way he'd complimented her with all the stiff awkwardness of a Victorian gentleman confessing admiration.
And the way something like fondness had curled inside her chest at the sight.
She shook the feeling off, tied her hair back, and decided to see what the boys were doing this morning.
---
She walked into a storm.
Sheldon stood in the middle of the living room clutching a Rubbermaid container, his mouth a thin line of indignation. Howard and Raj hovered near the door, wearing identical "oh no, run" expressions.
"What's happening?" Penny asked.
"Sheldon brought homemade banana bread to the landlord's luncheon," Leonard said carefully. "amd then complimented Mrs. Kessle. She... misinterpreted the gesture."
"She thought he was flirting," Howard stage-whispered.
"She tried to kiss him," Raj added well whispered in Howard's ear to add having registered Penny's presence in the room.
"She attempted to ambush me in the kitchen!" Sheldon barked. "The woman corners like a Roomba with fresh batteries!"
Penny pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. "Sweetie, what exactly did you say to her?"
"I said," Sheldon replied, mimicking his own voice with absolute certainty, "'Your coconut oil makes your skin appear borderline luminescent.'"
Penny pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Oh my God, Sheldon."
"What? It does!" he said. "The woman radiates like a bioluminescent sea creature!"
"Okay," Penny said gently, stepping closer. "You accidentally gave her a personal compliment about her skin. That's why she thought—"
"That I was courting her?" Sheldon recoiled. "Penny, the woman wears novelty socks with sandals."
"That's not the point," she said. "Socially, that counts as flirtation."
He stared at her, bewildered.
"WHY?!"
"Because," Penny said, smiling despite herself, "people like hearing nice things about how they look. And if the person saying it is…well, you—unique, intense, and extremely precise—it reads as special."
Howard nodded. "Yeah, dude. You don't hand out compliments lightly."
Raj added through Howard, "She probably thought she hit the jackpot."
Sheldon looked horrified.
Penny touched his arm—lightly, carefully—and his eyes snapped down to her hand, then her face.
"Let me help you fix this," she said softly. "I'll go talk to her, explain it was just friendly."
"You would do that?" Sheldon asked, as though the idea was foreign.
"Of course," Penny said. "Friends help friends avoid awkward pseudo-romantic entanglements with elderly landlords."
Howard nodded solemnly. "A tale as old as time."
Sheldon swallowed.
Then, in a voice softer and more sincere than anything she'd heard from him so far:
"Thank you."
---
Mrs. Kessler accepted Penny's explanation immediately—well, immediately after lamenting that "the tall one with the cheekbones" wasn't actually interested.
By the time Penny got back upstairs, Sheldon was sitting at his spot, hands folded, looking strangely deflated.
"She misunderstood me," he said quietly. "All I wanted was to show her I appreciated the treats she leaves in the lobby."
Penny sat beside him. "I know. And you did mean well."
"It's incredibly inefficient," he muttered. "All these hidden rules. Hidden meanings. Inconsistent patterns."
His fingers twitched against his knee. "I wish people would just say what they mean."
Penny's heart tightened.
Because beneath all the rigidity, the rules, the exasperating literalism—
there was someone trying so hard.
Someone who didn't understand the maze but still walked through it every day.
"Hey," she said softly. "For what it's worth? I think it's brave."
He blinked. "Brave?"
"To keep trying," she said. "Even when it's confusing."
Sheldon stared at her for a long, long moment.
Then he nodded once—sharp, but with a tremor of sincerity.
"I appreciate the assistance," he said stiffly. "Your intervention prevented a deeply distressing outcome."
"You're welcome," she replied, smiling warmly.
His shoulders eased—not much, but enough.
---
Later that night, back at her apartment, Penny returned to her desk.
She flipped open her sketchbook.
Without thinking, her pencil began to glide across the page.
A tall figure appeared—angular, intense, wrapped in celestial circuitry instead of fabric. A warrior-scholar with armor shaped like constellations and a stern expression that hid a soft core of starlight.
A character who read the world too literally.
A character who fought for it anyway.
A character who tried.
She paused, breath catching.
She wasn't drawing Starfall Valkyrie.
She was drawing him.
Sheldon—not as he was, but as she saw him.
When she finished, she stared at the page a long time.
Then she whispered into the quiet:
"…You're not as impossible as you think, Moonpie."
Her chest warmed.
Her pencil moved again.
She didn't notice she was smiling.