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It’s nearing 10pm at night when Penny first hears Sheldon’s trademark knock at her door.
“Hey Sheldon,” she says, smiling as she opens the door to him, “what’s shaking?”
“Shaking?” he asks, as thrown by her colloquialism as she expected him to be. He’s dripping wet from the rain pouring down outside her window, the windbreaker wrapped around his body doing little to keep the rest of him dry, and she’s surprised to find that he’s been outside so late at night all by himself. “Penny, I have a favor to ask.”
“Right,” Penny answers, stepping away from the door to let him and making her way into the kitchen while he stands, still sodden, just inside the door with his arms crossed uncomfortably over his chest. “Do you want to dry off a little, maybe?” she asks, offering him a kitchen towel that she would call clean – except for the tomato sauce staining the corner.
He makes the annoyed, slightly perturbed face she expected him to and refuses (which is exactly why she offered him a kitchen towel instead of heading to the bathroom to fetch a large, fluffy clean one) and says, “Penny, this is serious.”
“Aren’t they all?” she asks, referring to all the other favors he’s asked of her over the years.
He ignores the question and plows on. “As you may know, when Amy and I had our little disagreement last year that resulted in the end of our friendship-”
“Until your mother came to town and forced you to kiss and make up,” Penny adds.
“Until my mother made me see the error of my ways,” Sheldon corrects, “there was a little debacle with my having acquired too many cats.”
“Little?”
“In regards to that incident, Leonard and I altered our roommate agreement to include the stipulation that I am no longer allowed to bring four-legged animals of any kind into our apartment.”
“So who aren’t you talking to this time?” Penny asks, giving him a wry smile.
“It’s not that,” Sheldon answers, “it’s just- I found this kitten when I was walking home from the gas station on the corner,” he explains as he adjusts his arms to reveal a tiny kitten nestled in the crook of his elbow, just as soaked from the rain as Sheldon is himself.
“Ohhh,” Penny coos as the widest little green eyes in the smallest little white face stare out at her.” He’s so darling.”
“He was all alone and muddy and wet from the rain and I couldn’t just leave him there. So that brings me to my original inquiry. Do you think he could stay here on a temporary basis until I negotiate an appropriate change in the roommate agreement with Leonard?”
“Sure he can,” Penny whispers, still staring into the kitten’s solemn eyes. “Can I pet him?”
“Oh, of course,” Sheldon says, and maneuvers the kitten around to allow Penny better access to his small body. “I had thought we should clean him up a little tonight and make sure he’s nice and dry before we give him a little milk and a warm spot to sleep.”
*
Later, after the kitten is clean, dry, and lazing on a pillow beside Penny’s bed, Penny asks, “do you have any ideas about what you’re going to name him yet?” as she and Sheldon take turns stroking the kitten’s soft silky fur.
“Hmm, I have a couple ideas,” Sheldon answers.
“Just please, please don’t tell me you want to name him Schrödinger.”
“Why not? It’s a perfectly good name,” thus confirming Penny’s sinking feeling.
“Because there’s a fifty percent change that cat ends up dead. This little guy’s just so tiny and delicate, it just seems like a bad omen.”
“There is no correlation between a cat’s name and-“ Sheldon starts, but Penny silences him with a look.
“You’re the one who brought this stupid little cat into my life and made me all worried about him, so just indulge me, okay?”
“Eratosthenes,” Sheldon says.
“What? Please tell me you didn’t just insult me.”
“What? No. It’s the name of the Greek mathematician who first measured the circumference of the earth.”
“And you want to name your cat that,” Penny comments dryly.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it.”
“I can’t pronounce it, that’s what’s wrong with it.”
“Er-“
“Don’t you dare sound it out for me. I guarantee you I won’t remember it tomorrow and he’ll have a name I pick for him. Whiskers or Fluffy or something.”
Sheldon glowers at her. “You can’t name a cat Fluffy. It’s undignified.”
“How about a nice, normal American name then? What about all those superhero comics you’re always reading? Surely one of them has a secret identity that we can both agree on as this little kitty’s namesake. One that I can pronounce without flash cards.”
“Eratosthenes is-“
“No, no way. What if I have to tell him not to do something? I’d be, Eratho-whosawhatsit, don’t you dare pee on that pillow, and whoops, but the time I get his full stupid name out, he’s all done and your cat lives in the bathroom for three days.”
“I really don’t think-“ Sheldon begins, his face getting all pinched and lecture-y.
“Chill, he’ll have food and water and all the necessities, I’m not cruel. Which is why I refuse to let you name him after a dead Greek mathematician. Now, who was that superhero that you and all your little friends tried to go as that one Halloween?”
“The Flash,” Sheldon answers, looking resigned. “Alright, you win. His name can be Wally.”
“Wally,” Penny says, trying it out as she lifts up the kitty and looking him in the eye. “What a nice, normal, two syllable name. I think it fits you very well, Wally.”
*
Sheldon stays late into the night, leaving with promises to be back in the morning with an appointment to take Wally in to the vet to check out his health and get him vaccinated.
Penny tries to fall asleep with Wally curled up on his pillow on the floor, but just as she’s about to get up and lift him up onto the bed with her, he leaps up on his own and curls up in the crook of her elbow.
“Night little guy,” Penny whispers, scratching his head before she finally dozes off.
Sheldon shows up bright and early the next morning while Penny is still in her pajamas and has only started to drink her first cup of coffee. He’s brought a large bag with him and a cat carrier. Wally sniffs at his feet while he puts his things down and starts taking things out of his bag.
“You’d better hurry up,” Sheldon says, “the appointment’s in an hour and a half.”
Penny doesn’t dignify that with an answer, simply yawns widely in his general vicinity.
“Here, I brought over a food and water bowl, a scratching post, oh and some toys.”
“Sheldon,” Penny says, “where did you get all this stuff?”
“I, um, I kept it. Here,” Sheldon says, pulling a little pink mouse with a tail made of blue feathers out of the bag, “this one was Zazzy’s favorite. It’s stuffed with catnip which makes it much more enticing.”
“Sheldon, sweetie,” Penny asks, her heart dropping a little at the look on his face, “why didn’t you keep any of your cats?”
Sheldon won’t meet her eyes as he answers, instead offering the mouse. “Both my mother and Amy suggested it was really for the best.”
“Not even one?” All Penny wants to do right now is give him a hug even though she knows he wouldn’t enjoy it and would simply brush it off and tense up the minute she touched him.
“Besides,” Sheldon continues, waving the mouse around for Wally to pounce on, “with Leonard’s allergies it wasn’t really fair to him. That’s why we made that addendum to the roommate agreement. He did stipulate that the next time I’m feeling a lack of human companionship I could have anything that lives in a fish tank, although not with too much water, you know mold also exasperates his allergies, so that just leaves amphibians, reptiles or crustaceans, none of which I’m very fond of. In any event, that’s why Wally is living here with you for the time being. Now help me put him into his carrier. I assume this is an experience he’s not going to enjoy very much.”
“Sheldon,” Penny says and reaches forward, giving in the urge to hug him that had only gotten stronger and stronger throughout his little monologue.
Sheldon freezes, but surprisingly doesn’t tense up or move away, although he does sigh as Wally hops off the couch and scuttles under the couch. “Oh now look what you’ve made him do. Cats are very intelligent you know. He must sense that we’re going to take him somewhere we know he’s not going to enjoy.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get him out just fine,” Penny assures him, giving Sheldon one final squeeze before letting him go.
*
At the vet’s office, they find out that Wally is actually a girl.
“That can’t be right,” Sheldon says to the vet. “Check again.”
“I can assure you Dr. Cooper,” the vet says archly, “that I have been in this business for thirty years and that your cat is in fact female. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to step out for a moment to get Wally the proper vaccinations.”
“Wow,” Penny laughs after the vet has left the room, “the great Dr. Sheldon Cooper can’t tell a little boy cat from a little girl cat. Hilarious.”
“He – she was soaking wet and covered in mud at the time. And she’s so tiny. I can’t be held accountable if I mistook some matted fur for male genital organs.”
“The look on your face,” Penny starts to say before she’s overwhelmed with laughter that doesn’t stop until the vet returns.
*
After Sheldon’s paid and they’re walking out the door of the vet’s office, Sheldon says, “Come on, Wally, let’s go home.”
“Do you really think we should keep calling her that?” Penny asks, unlocking the back door of her car and opening it so that Sheldon can gently secure the carrier in her backseat.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Sheldon answers nonchalantly.
“It’s just, she’s a girl. And that’s a boy’s name.”
“Oh yes I forgot,” Sheldon says dryly, “she’s already going to get teased at daycare for being a kitten from a broken home, having a male name is going to make it even worse.”
“Day care?” Penny repeats, opening her own door and sliding into the driver’s seat as Sheldon carefully buckles himself into the passenger’s seat beside her.
“That was sarcasm. Cats don’t care what the traditional gender of their name is,” Sheldon says. “Could you not tell?”
“No,” Penny answers, surprised. “Well, I didn’t expect that from you, but that was actually pretty good. Nice burn.”
“I’m confused. Why are you congratulating me for insulting you? Isn’t that normally frowned upon?”
“You do it so often without even trying, this time I was proud there was effort involved.”
Sheldon gives her a look that says he finds her far more challenging than quantum physics and they drive in silence for a few minutes until Penny says, “I think her name should be Wallis.”
“Wallis? Isn’t that also a masculine name?”
“Nope,” Penny says, grinning. “It was also the name of the Duchess of Windsor.”
“Oh that’s right, Wallis Simpson. Wallis was actually her middle name.”
“Look at you, all full of fun little facts,” Penny says, grinning at him. “So, I was thinking, I’ll call her Wallis after a very famous woman since the cat is a girl, and you can call her Wally for short if you’re so inclined. Problem solved.”
Sheldon’s forehead scrunches as if he is debating the relative merits of continuing to argue with her and in the end simply sighs and says, “Fine, I accept your proposal. Don’t forget we need to stop at the pet store to buy kitten food.”
Penny laughs, victorious.
*
After a long day of cat proofing her apartment to Sheldon’s exacting standards when they get home from the vet, Penny drowses on the couch, watching Sheldon pet his cat. She is just beginning to think about going to bed when she feels a light pressure on her hand.
“Sheldon,” she asks, glancing down, “are you holding my hand?”
“Yes, I believe I am.” He sounds as if he doesn’t quite believe it himself.
“Why are you holding my hand?”
Sheldon shrugs, an uncomfortable movement of one shoulder. “This thing that you did for me, taking in my kitten, I think it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Penny turns to gaze at him. “Sheldon, that’s kind of sad.”
“And yet, it doesn’t make it any less true,” he answers, his free hand reaching up to gently stroke Wally behind the ears – that and the little strip of fur along the inside of his front legs just above his paws are where his fur in the softest – and Penny stares at him for a long, silent moment. Sheldon may be so much smarter than her, but she forgets sometimes how difficult he finds interacting with people, even his closest friends. Penny’s life has always been simple that way, and she understands the concept asking for help when you need it, something she doubt that Sheldon has even known how to do. Her heart clenches in her chest at the thought.
“Sheldon, I just…” she starts, but can’t finish, can’t find the words, so she leans over instead. She can’t not kiss him after hearing that, it’s just not in her nature. It’s a quick kiss, a swift brush of her lips against his, and she’s blushing when she pulls, notices that he is too when she dares to glance over at him again. “I will always do kind things for you, whether you ask me to or not.”
“Alright,” he answers, and she can tell he has no idea what to say, what do to, but his hand is still a warm presence wrapped around her own, and to be perfectly honest, she’s a little nervous about it too. She shifts her hand around to lace their fingers together and smiles when Sheldon doesn’t pull away, knows then that they’ll figure it out.
*
Six months later, rather than making any amendments to the roommate agreement he previously shared with Leonard, Sheldon moves in across the hall with Penny and Wallis.
.end