Hey, everyone who is gracious enough to read this. Its my first foray into writing fanfiction so...please review, and please be nice. XD

Chapter I: To the beach…to swim

It had been three months since Penny's breakup with Leonard, and everything was pretty much back to normal. But as she sat at her kitchen table flipping through the latest issue of Vogue, she felt that familiar need to walk across the hall to check on her little (at least, in Leonard's case) dorky friends. So she did. Leonard answered the door and Sheldon glanced up from his laptop.

"Hi guys!" "Hi, Penny." "Hello, Penny."

….Silence. Penny knew she'd have to start something. "Sooo…anyone up for a trip to the beach?" Leonard cocked his head in his trademark "confused" expression. "Like….to swim?" he asked, tentatively. "Well-yeah," Penny smiled. "That's why people go to the beach."

Sheldon swiveled away from his computer screen. "Actually, that's an unrealistic generalization. People often go to the beach to enjoy a number of activities other than swimming, i.e. surfing, sailing, shell-collecting, sun-bathing-"

"Sheldon," Leonard cut him off impatiently. He turned back to Penny. "That sounds great, we'd love to come-"

"No, we wouldn't." "Yes we would, Sheldon," Leonard half-yelled. Sheldon stood indignantly. "May I remind you of what occurred last time we visited the beach?"

Leonard leaned against the doorframe. "Sheldon, your mother is not in town now, and anyway I don't think it's possible to baptize someone for a third time, voluntarily or otherwise." Sheldon advanced on him. "Then need I mention how extraordinarily harmful exposure to solar UV rays is, particularly to someone with such delicate, porcelain skin as I have?"

"Sheldon?"

"Yes?"

"Lets go." With that, Leonard walked swiftly to his room, grabbed his swim trunks, and started down the stairs with Penny. Sheldon followed. "Leonard, if I get burned, you're rubbing aloe vera on my back."

Penny skipped through the water, breaking out in a smile. The Santa Monica waves were nice and cool this late in June. She glanced back to shore. Sheldon was sitting cross-legged and straight-backed just outside of the water's reach, in his usual two shirts and a pair of plaid shorts. Penny appreciated that he had a look and stuck with it, but seriously. It's the beach.

Penny walked up the hot sand until Sheldon was under her shadow. She tossed her damp hair over her shoulder, her white, one-piece suit gleaming in the sun like a freshly minted dime. "Sheldon, why aren't you in the water with us?" she demanded. He raised his eyebrows challengingly. "Penny, I don't swim." Penny opened her mouth to protest, but Leonard laid a sea-drenched hand on her arm. "He doesn't." Penny furrowed her brow.

"You can't just…not swim," she said as the two of them walked back to the water. Leonard swished his feet in the tiny waves. "He can swim, he just chooses not to. He doesn't like the ocean." Penny grinned mischievously. "Well…why don't we cure him of that little problem, hmm?"

"Leonard, that's preposterous, why would jellyfish be swimming this close to shore?"

"Just come out a little farther, it was just here a minute ago…"

"I don't see any-AAAAAAH!!" Splash.

Leonard threw himself with a shout of laughter into the water beside a dripping, spluttering Sheldon. Penny giggled-he looked like a cat that had fallen into a bath tub. "That was completely unnecessary!" Sheldon stood and walked back up to safe, dry land. Penny's eyes followed him as he went. Something strange had happened in the second that he had risen from the water. He didn't look like a wet cat anymore…he looked like (Penny couldn't think of a better description) a god. His eyes burned with humiliation and salty water stung his cheeks and lips, bringing out a rosy pink color. It tousled his usually neatly combed hair. It soaked through his shirt(s), so that the latter was plastered to his body, revealing…muscles? The outlines were faint, but they were definitely there. Penny found herself wondering how he would look in just one t-shirt….or none…

Then a wave knocked her legs out from under, forcing her back to reality.