"Elizabeth the Tenth," River Song says, "Was a lioness among her people."

This fic contains: explicit sexual situations, rampant infidelity, emotional fuckery, unhealthy romantic relationships, and the potential abuse of all forms of basic punctuation. Don't say you weren't warned.

That's it. That's the way out of this; he'll walk the worlds like a human does, a thin clear vessel with a narrow thread of heartbeat, one thought in front of another, one life in front of another, and then -

"Hello! According to social convention, if you do not provide us with candy, we will vandalize your home!"

"You don't have to, like, make out with her. Just go get your game on. It's cool." God, Howard's pretty good at this advice shit. Maybe he should just bow out of the game gracefully and retire. He can wear long velvet dressing gowns and dispense advice to distraught young fictional lesbians. He will be a guru, a modern-day guru with glorious hair, and he will often be holding a glass half-full of dark red wine. His mansion will have many cameras. For security purposes, of course.

That's it. That's the way out of this; he'll walk the worlds like a human does, a thin clear vessel with a narrow thread of heartbeat, one thought in front of another, one life in front of another, and then-

It comes as something of a shock when she throws the shoe at his head.

"I find it a little demeaning to be threatened over magnets."

Sheldon Cooper is... pretty good at stealing TVs.

Penny says "I'm not going back" and then regrets it instantly because she's a little bit superstitious. Out here it feels like somebody might be listening. As if saying something aloud to the sky and prairie and the morning sun makes it into prophecy or prayer. Summer on the Nebraska plain has an element of truth to it.

God, she'd forgotten how to drive. How good it feels to just chew up miles, to move. In California everyone drives everywhere, it's totally stupid, they get in the car and spend fifteen minutes in traffic just to go one block. Now she's got nothing but horizon, and she's going fast so it changes, mountainscreeksbrushsand all thrown together, makes you feel like a goddess to go fast through it. Penny falls in love with Nevada. Nevada's got a lot of horizons, they're rewarding. Up and down one ridge, and then there's another. All silver desert, a brilliant sandbox of jagged rock and dune.

"Mildew," he pronounces darkly. "Don't leave it in a pile in the laundry room, as you doubtless intended to do. It will create the ideal conditions for fostering the growth of mildew. Now, assuming you haven't changed your laundry habits to ones sane and logical, which is frankly unlikely, you'll have a load comprised of mixed materials i.e. denims and towels and delicate garments all roiled together in an indiscriminate orgy of poor planning, inevitable pilling and ill-advised synthetic fibers."    "I heard 'orgy,'" she offers.

"'Homemade' is not a subspecies of pie. 'Homemade' is not a part of pie taxonomy."   "It's cherry," Penny bites out. "Eat. A. Friggin.' Piece."

"I'm not going to write an essay, Sheldon!"   "I've told you, Penny, at twenty-two you should be able to compose more than a simple book report!"

If Missy had known she was going to spend the night fighting the undead, she would have worn a longer skirt.