Chapter 4: The Emmy in the Oven
Three days of living as Penny-from-4B, and Penny was starting to think she might actually pull this off.
She'd survived the bowling trophy interrogation, the television installation, and Howard's disastrous pickup attempts without major incident. One slip-up with the catchphrase, but Sheldon had filed it away as random weirdness rather than evidence of anything suspicious. Raj's continued scrutiny was concerning, but not immediately threatening.
For the first time since fleeing Los Angeles, Penny allowed herself to relax.
That was her first mistake.
Her second was leaving her Emmy sitting on the bookshelf in plain view of the front door.
She was sprawled on her couch, actually reading a book instead of skimming scripts, when her phone buzzed with a text from Leonard: "Pizza night? We're ordering too much as usual."
Penny smiled, already reaching for her shoes. Pizza night sounded perfect. Normal. The kind of casual weeknight activity that regular people did without calculating camera angles or publicity implications.
She was halfway to the door when she saw it—the distinctive gold statuette catching the late afternoon light streaming through her window, its nameplate clearly visible to anyone who might glance past her into the apartment.
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series - Penelope Queen
"No no no no no," Penny breathed, diving across the room like she was saving a falling child.
Her socks betrayed her on the hardwood floor, sending her sliding past the coffee table in a move that would have made her stunt coordinator proud. She caught the Emmy mid-slide, clutching it against her chest just as Leonard's knock echoed through the apartment.
"Just a second!" she called, her voice pitched higher than usual as adrenaline flooded her system.
Where could she hide it? The bookshelf was compromised. The coffee table was too obvious. Under the couch cushions? Too risky—someone might sit down and discover a suspicious lump. Her bedroom was too far away, and Leonard was already knocking again.
Her eyes landed on the oven.
"Perfect. I never cook anyway."
She yanked open the oven door and shoved the Emmy inside, pushing it as far back as possible and slamming the door shut just as footsteps approached her front door.
"Hey," Leonard said as she opened it, trying to look casual despite being slightly out of breath and definitely disheveled. "You okay? You sounded... frantic."
"Totally fine!" Penny said, her smile so bright it probably violated several safety regulations. "Just had to, um, turn off the stove. Safety first!"
Leonard glanced toward her kitchen area, where the stove was clearly off and had obviously been off for some time. "Okay," he said slowly. "Sheldon and the guys are already here. Hope that's all right."
"Perfect. Great. The more the merrier."
Twenty minutes later, Penny's apartment was full of the warm chaos of friends sharing food, and she was starting to remember why she'd enjoyed their company despite all the complications. Howard had dialed back his aggressive flirtation to something almost resembling normal conversation. Raj was still signing to the group, but Leonard had started translating without being asked, including him more naturally in the discussion. Even Sheldon seemed more relaxed, only correcting factual inaccuracies instead of cataloging everyone's logical fallacies.
"The pizza's getting cold," Sheldon announced after they'd been talking for about an hour. "We should reheat it for optimal temperature and cheese meltability."
Penny's blood turned to ice. "That's okay! Cold pizza is fine! Some people prefer cold pizza!"
"That's statistically improbable," Sheldon said, already rising from the couch. "The optimal serving temperature for cheese-based foods is—"
"The oven's broken!" Penny blurted, positioning herself between Sheldon and the kitchen like a goalkeeper defending the net.
Sheldon paused, his scientific curiosity immediately piqued. "Broken how?"
"Think, Penelope. What kind of oven problem would Sheldon not want to investigate?"
"Very broken," she said. "Like, mysteriously broken. Possibly haunted."
This was apparently exactly the wrong thing to say.
Sheldon's eyes lit up with the kind of fervor usually reserved for theoretical breakthroughs. "Haunted appliances represent a fascinating intersection of electromagnetic phenomena and psychological projection. I should examine it to determine whether the perceived supernatural activity has a rational scientific explanation."
"No!" Penny stepped sideways, maintaining her defensive position. "I mean, it's dangerous. Super dangerous. The gas lines might be compromised, or there could be... electrical... things. Bad electrical things."
Leonard was looking at her like she'd started speaking in tongues. "Penny, are you feeling all right? You seem really anxious about this."
"Just concerned about safety," she said weakly. "Gas explosions are no joke."
"It's an electric oven," Sheldon observed with devastating accuracy. "I can see the 240-volt outlet configuration from here."
"Of course it is. Of course Sheldon would notice that."
The conversation moved on—Howard launching into a story about a disastrous date, Raj signing animated commentary that made Leonard laugh—but Penny couldn't focus on any of it. Every few minutes, her gaze would dart toward the oven, checking to make sure no suspicious gleams of gold were visible through the glass door.
She was so focused on guarding her secret that she completely forgot about her autopilot domestic programming.
"Anyone want cookies?" she asked during a lull in conversation, already moving toward the kitchen. "I've got that slice-and-bake stuff in the fridge."
She had preheated the oven and was reaching for the cookie dough before her conscious mind caught up with her muscle memory.
The oven was on.
The oven was on, and her Emmy was inside it.
"Actually," she said, spinning around with forced casualness, "maybe cookies aren't such a good—"
Smoke began pouring from the oven vents.
The smoke alarm's shriek cut through the apartment like a banshee, drowning out her half-formed excuse. The acrid smell of burning metal filled the air, followed immediately by something that smelled suspiciously like melting plastic.
"Fire!" Howard shouted, jumping up from the couch.
"Not fire!" Penny yelled back, lunging for the oven. "Just... controlled burning! Very controlled!"
She yanked open the oven door, releasing a cloud of smoke that made everyone in the apartment start coughing. Through the haze, she could see her Emmy—tarnished, smoking, its ribbon completely charred.
"What's in there?" Leonard asked, trying to peer over her shoulder.
Penny grabbed an oven mitt and pulled out the statuette, its gold surface now blackened and the engraved nameplate partially melted. In her panic, she did the only thing that made sense—she ran to the freezer and threw the Emmy inside, slamming the door shut.
"Metal thing," she gasped, waving smoke away from her face. "I was heating up a... metal... thing. For... reasons."
The smoke alarm continued its assault on everyone's eardrums. Leonard was opening windows while Howard fanned the air with a dish towel. Raj had produced his phone and was either calling for help or documenting the chaos for posterity.
Sheldon, meanwhile, had retrieved his notebook and was writing furiously.
"Penny Peculiarities: Item Number One," he announced over the noise. "Attempts to heat unidentified metal objects in kitchen appliances for unclear purposes. Note correlation with previous claims of appliance malfunction and supernatural activity."
"It's not a peculiarity!" Penny protested. "It's just... I forgot I put it in there!"
"Why were you heating metal in the first place?" Leonard asked, genuine concern replacing confusion in his voice.
Penny's mind went completely blank. "It was... cold?"
Twenty minutes later, after the fire department had cleared out and declared the incident a result of "cooking mishap, no further action required," Penny stood in her smoky apartment staring at the four men who had somehow become important to her in the span of less than a week.
"I should probably let you guys get back to your evening," she said, trying to restore some normalcy to the situation. "Thanks for... not letting me burn the building down."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Leonard asked, lingering after the others had headed toward the door. "You've been acting kind of... strange today."
His hand touched her shoulder—warm, gentle, concerned—and Penny felt something crack open in her chest. When was the last time someone had touched her without wanting something in return? When was the last time someone had been worried about her instead of worried about her market value?
"I'm fine," she managed. "Just having an off day."
After they left, Penny waited until she was sure they were gone before retrieving her Emmy from the freezer. The statuette was ice-cold now, its surface scarred but still recognizable. The nameplate was partially melted, but she could still make out the words that had once meant everything to her:
Outstanding Lead Actress - Penelope Queen
She wrapped the damaged award in a pillowcase and buried it in the back of her closet, behind boxes of designer shoes and carefully preserved designer gowns that belonged to a woman who felt increasingly like a stranger.
Her hands were shaking as she closed the closet door. Whether from residual adrenaline or from the memory of Leonard's touch, she couldn't tell.
What she could tell was that living two lives was becoming exponentially more complicated, and she was running out of places to hide the evidence.
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