The Deviated Sleeping Requirement

By: Leese

Rating: T

Summary: Set before and during The Septum Deviation in season 8, and delves deeper into the discovery and treatment of Leonard's nasal congestion, and Penny and Leonard's relationship at the time. Pure Lenny (and a few Shamy references, since we're also talking post-Prom-Equivalency). Enjoy!

A/N: Even though in this episode Sheldon's concern for Leonard's operation obviously comes from a good place, I felt there were also some more 'back off' vibes from Leonard and Penny here, which was interesting and fun to play with over these three chapters!

This is also probably a slower, more 'dense' story than my others, which is just the way it kind of rolled out of me onto the keys over the weekend. Have some more ideas in the pipeline that will be less full on and a little lighter! :-)

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Chapter One

Penny awoke with a start, unsure of where she was after being yanked from a less-than-pleasant dream by her subconscious. She immediately could not remember what she had been dreaming other than that it had been frightening, too focused on her shallow breath and racing heart, and the instinctive realisation that kept demanding her attention; this wasn't her room.

She lay still on her right side and looked around, wide-eyed, as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. The first thing she could make out was the wooden side table in front of her. A dark lamp hung over a box of tissues, and she could see the pink casing of her phone, which lay on the very corner of the table, closest to her.

Penny's breathing eased as she reached for the phone and her memories of the previous night returned. The fake prom on the roof, getting dressed up, dancing with Leonard under the fairy lights, watching the drama with Howard and Stuart and Howard's cousin unfold, and laughing with Raj's girlfriend Emily about it all…more dancing with Leonard. They had been the first to arrive and the last to leave, and it was absolutely the best prom she had ever been to. She had certainly gone home with the best man.

So Penny wasn't in a strange place after all, she quickly figured out. She was in Leonard's bed, in his room, and she was safe. Once her breath softened and her heart slowed, the smell of the sheets became familiar, so did the feel of the pillow she knew, and she could hear him behind her, snoring. He was certainly no danger to her, and after quickly checking the time on her phone – it was nearly four a.m. – Penny put it back on the side table and rolled to lie on her back. It was an attempt to quickly fall back to sleep, but that was easier said than done, thanks to her fiancé and his nostrils.

They rarely spent the night at one another's apartments since the engagement, with Penny still keen not to rush things and Leonard happy to oblige her nerves. For that reason, it was familiar to be in his bed but Penny didn't feel like it was entirely normal anymore, and she hadn't realised just how bad Leonard's snoring had actually become over the last few months. He sounded really congested, and from the times she could remember it did seem to be getting worse. A quick glance towards him told her that he was on his left side, facing away from her, but that didn't seem to matter even though Penny had always thought people snored more when they lay on their back.

It was something she had been meaning to bring up for a couple of months, but she just didn't know how to say it. 'Uh, honey…your snoring is kind of bad…maybe we should look into that.' Was snoring something they had to think of as a 'we' thing? Was it a 'him' thing? Did being concerned just lower her to the level of 'nagging wife'? Penny preferred to avoid being seen that way most of the time, and Leonard really wasn't the type of guy to need nagging or bossing around anyway. If anything it was the other way around-

Focus Penny, she thought as she furrowed her brow and stared at the ceiling. Her brain and Leonard's snoring had dashed her hopes of a quick return to slumber, but maybe that was her answer. In the light of day, when she rolled into his arms for a now-rare but much-missed morning cuddle and Leonard tiredly asked her how she slept, she would just mumble into his chest, 'not great, you snore'. He would deny it of course, because apparently she was the one who snored in the relationship, but definitely not like this. He didn't used to snore at all, it was true, and now he did…badly.

He was tired more lately too, she reasoned. He got headaches, he had been stuffy and using his nasal spray a lot and telling her it was pollen allergies flaring. It was certainly the season for it, Bernadette had been telling her all about Howard's hay fever, but what if that wasn't the case for Leonard? He didn't have watery eyes and he didn't cough and sneeze during the day like someone with actual persistent allergies. Did pollen even cause snoring? Penny knew it could probably make it worse but to go from not snoring to being this loud and grating…she wasn't a genius but Leonard's explanation – his guess, actually – still sounded farfetched.

Penny sighed and considered rolling out of bed, finding her dress in the dark and tiptoeing back to her apartment, but she couldn't bring herself to do that. They had a rule that if one person was going to leave and go home, they had to do it while the other was still awake, they had to say goodbye properly and leave. If they both fell asleep before that happened, or if one of them asked to stay and the other said yes, then that was where they would both stay.

It sounded silly but it worked surprisingly well. It was hard for both of them to leave but it did turn the leaving into 'just another fact of their relationship', rather than something that might make them feel incredibly guilty or awkward or sad. And when sleepovers did happen, sometimes spontaneously and sometimes at one of their direct requests after particularly intimate sex, or even just after a long day or important conversation, then it made those nights more special. It gave Penny a glimpse of what it could be like going to bed with someone and waking up with them every day, without forcing her to commit to it just yet, and the idea was increasingly becoming less scary. In fact, she was beginning to crave it.

She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Leonard, she was going to do that, and it was getting harder and harder to leave or to let him go. Both of them were making requests to stay more often. She knew he felt it too. There really was only one thing stopping them from both caving, and it wasn't her stubbornness…it was Sheldon. Penny didn't want to live full time with Sheldon as well, because she didn't want the three of them living in the guys' apartment to become Sheldon's new normal, or another part of his unyielding comfort zone. Leonard had been insistent about that too. But just as true was the fact that Leonard couldn't simply move across the hall; Sheldon clearly wasn't ready for that either. It was too big a change from his current normal.

So they had muddled through all three of their needs and come up with this plan. It did support their relationship, and even Sheldon had put effort into understanding it. Penny couldn't break that bond or that trust; she couldn't just tiptoe out of the apartment in the early hours of the morning and make that walk of shame across the hall. If Sheldon caught her, or in the morning if he asked Leonard where she was and Leonard had to sadly admit that she must have left in the night, then it would be extremely awkward and Sheldon would look at her like she was hurting Leonard's feelings and threatening the relationship, and she would feel humiliated. She would probably cry, knowing that she was the first one to walk out. Of course she would be the first one!

Nope, not happening, Penny assured herself. She did not even want to leave. She was staying with the love of her life, snoring or no snoring, and she was going to cherish what had been a wonderful night. She just needed to also cherish a few more hours of sleep! She propped herself up on her hand and turned to look down at Leonard. He was deeply asleep and his top shoulder had fallen forward; he was kind of hunched and maybe that was making the snoring worse. Maybe if she just rolled him onto his back, it would change his position and jolt him out of the rut he had gotten himself into for the night.

Penny touched the fingers of her right hand to her face to make sure they were warm, before she laid that hand on Leonard's top shoulder. She held her breath as she very carefully applied pressure and pulled him towards her. There was plenty of room between them and sure enough, Leonard rolled easily. Maybe he unconsciously knew it was her touching him, moving him closer to her. He didn't stir as he settled on his back, his head lay still on his pillow, and Penny smiled to herself when indeed, the snoring stopped. Leonard's breathing was deep and steady and only very slightly rattled.

Yes!

Penny lay back down proud of the silence that had filled the room, and she turned towards Leonard and shut her eyes. She snuggled in closer, and when she wrapped one of her arms around Leonard's, he linked their fingers in his sleep. Penny grinned and rested her face up against the soft skin of his upper arm. She could already feel sleep tugging at the edge of her soul again, and she let a deep, warm breath wash over his bicep as she relaxed.

She had no idea what time it was when she woke next, but it was still dark so it might have only been half an hour later. This second time, she hadn't had a nightmare; she didn't think she'd been asleep long enough to be dreaming at all. She was just…awake. Her face was still pressed up against Leonard's arm, she could smell his soap and skin and the last remnants of cologne, he was so warm, and their fingers were still tangled gently by their hips.

Penny sighed happily as Leonard exhaled, and she closed her eyes again, dismissing this wake-up call as some kind of random anomaly. She was probably still wired from their magical prom night, and still struggling to return to sleep after Leonard's snoring earlier. She let herself be relaxed by the sounds of Leonard's deep, nasal breathing and smiled against his arm.

Until it stopped. For a few seconds, Penny thought she had drifted off to sleep and was happily anticipating not waking up again until the sun was streaking into the room around the edges of the tightly closed curtains. She could wake Leonard up with little kisses along his collarbone, since both of them were only wearing the underwear they'd worn under their prom outfits…but Penny was aware of the fact that she didn't 'anticipate' things like that when she dreamt, she never dreamt about being asleep, and so clearly she wasn't.

Penny's skin crawled as she remained completely still and held her breath and waited. She didn't want to make any noise. She had to be imagining it.

But Leonard wasn't moving, and he wasn't breathing.

Just as Penny thought about sitting up, he did snort a little and his chest inflated. He breathed in almost silently, maybe through his mouth, and he gave her hand an involuntary squeeze. Was that what had woken her earlier, she wondered? Had he stirred just like this? How much time had just passed?

She carefully eased herself up to a sitting position without releasing her fingers from his or changing the pressure on his hand. Penny didn't want to wake him; she wanted to watch him. Her heart was beating rapidly, painfully in her chest as she sat in the dark and looked over her shoulder slightly, back towards his face. It was turned towards her, and he was snoring lightly again.

Had she dreamed it? She knew she was definitely sober. Neither of them had drunk much other than the punch at the prom, and Sheldon had only spiked it with juice. Without letting go of Leonard's hand, Penny reached around to the side table for her phone. Trying to keep it low at her side so that the light didn't bother him, she unlocked the screen and looked at the time; it wasn't even quarter to five. Penny could have been asleep for less than ten minutes.

Had rolling Leonard onto his back made him not be able to breathe properly?

Penny bit her bottom lip and stared back at him, wide-eyed and doing her best not to worry. She sat and did absolutely nothing for what her phone soon informed her was five minutes, before it happened again. Leonard breathed out, then nothing. Penny counted a very inaccurate, shaky thirty seconds inside her head before he inhaled. This time when he squeezed her hand she squeezed it back, reassuring herself that he was fine. Maybe this was normal.

Except that not breathing for thirty seconds in the middle of the night, at least twice in an hour, couldn't possibly be normal. That was never normal.

"Okay, don't panic," Penny whispered. Leonard was asleep and he didn't know anything about this. He wasn't even waking up properly, and this wasn't an emergency, it was just a problem, just a quiet, eerie, middle-of-the-night kind of problem. How long had this been going on for, she wondered? Penny had never noticed. Could he die? In any case, it had to be connected to the snoring and this so-called allergy problem with his sinuses. It had to all be connected and in the morning Penny was ordering him to a doctor. This was not one of those situations where he could just go to the drug store and get lots of medicine for 'the usual', because apparently he was an expert in hay fever and allergies and he didn't need to see a doctor 'every time'. Pfft.

Penny didn't go back to sleep. When it happened again at nine minutes past five, she was ready with the stopwatch on her phone. She let it count for her while she just sat and stared at his peaceful face and fought the urge to grip his hand. She was filled with a growing sense of just how bad this was when it seemed to be taking ages for Leonard to wake himself up again. Tears filled her eyes as she wished him to breathe. This was really scary, and she was the one who had rolled him onto his back and probably caused it, but now she didn't want to touch him just in case she did something to make it even worse.

But when a quick glance at her phone informed her that thirty seconds had passed and they were well on the way to the minute mark, Penny couldn't handle holding her own breath anymore. She would make him breathe with her if it was the last thing she did. She dropped her phone and laid her newly free hand on his stomach. She shook gently as she squeezed his hand.

"Leonard," she said. Nothing. Not that she had spoken very loud, she wasn't sure she had spoken at all if she was honest with herself, but still there was no response and Penny did panic then. A tear trickled down her cheek, the hand at his stomach flattened and pushed downward, and her fingernails dug sharply into the top of his hand. "Leonard!" she insisted more firmly.

It worked, he stirred and gasped and sucked in what Penny thought was a huge breath, but he still didn't wake up and as she started to cry in frustration. She took her hand off his stomach to swipe at her flushed, damp face and she looked behind her at the phone. The stopwatch was still going, it was up to a minute and twenty seconds, which meant he had stopped breathing for a full minute, or thereabouts. She switched it off with a shaking swipe of her index finger across the screen. Now all she had to do was wake him up.

Penny still gripped Leonard's hand and laid her other hand on his face. She stroked his cheek gently. She didn't want to jolt Leonard awake like she had just done to get him to inhale, so she chose the alternative, which was to drop lingering, salty kisses along his cheek and jaw and finally at his lips. She whispered his name and tried hard to pull herself together.

When Leonard moaned as she kissed under his chin and nuzzled the stubbly underside of his jaw, Penny knew she had succeeded. Leonard's far arm lifted and slid over her waist and around her bare upper back. He held her over him and pulled her down on top of him like everything was normal, displaying his usual strength and the warmth of skin-on-skin, full body contact that Penny hadn't expected considering what she had just seen and heard, or not heard.

"What time is it?" he asked, groggy and still half-asleep.

Penny opened her mouth to answer but she was overtired and overwhelmed, and all she could do was bury her head against his neck and cry. It was a different kind of crying, too. Penny never cried like this with Leonard or with anyone else. She had cried to him about stupid ex-boyfriends and break-ups and broken-down cars and bad auditions. There had been happier tears after she finally said 'I love you', or sometimes when he got emotional it made her cry, but this was different. This was a mixture of relieved and worried sobbing and it was loud and it wasn't petty, or pretty, and it really physically ached.

"Penny?" Leonard asked. His voice was thick and congested but it came through clearer, he was wide awake, and that was all Penny cared about as she finally let go of his hand and allowed him to hug her fully. He scratched fingers gently through her short hair and didn't say a word for a long time.

Until the door opened.

"What's wrong?" Sheldon asked, curious and concerned. He hadn't even knocked, so Penny knew she had worried him. "I heard Penny crying."

"I don't know buddy," Leonard replied softly as he continued to rub her bare back and massage her neck to soothe her. He only let go of her back long enough to reach for the sheet at their hips, to tug it higher up around their chests. Penny took a deep breath and kept her head turned away from Leonard's very caring roommate. She cared about Sheldon a lot in turn but she did not want to discuss this with him, at least not until she had put clothes on and talked to Leonard about what had happened first, in private.

"Leonard-"

"Shh Penny," he told her, before returning his attention to Sheldon. "Sheldon, we're fine. Penny's okay. It was probably just a bad dream, sorry it woke you."

"Oh, okay," he said. "Here," he added.

Leonard said thanks and released his hold on Penny again; to take whatever Sheldon had picked up to give him. Penny soon realised it was the box of tissues from the table on her side of the bed. Leonard returned his arm to the hug without even putting it down. He held the box against her ass over the sheet with his arm wrapped around her, and Penny felt herself calming. He was breathing underneath her; he was supporting almost all of her weight and being so sweet. She was breathing deeply too. Everything was okay now.

Sheldon left, and Leonard quickly urged Penny to sit up.

"I'll be right back, sorry," he promised as he scrambled out of bed and headed out of the room to go to the toilet. Penny chuckled, and found the tissues in the dark to blow her nose and wipe at her eyes. Her face felt puffy and hot. Good job keeping it cool, Penny, she told herself as she felt the final few sobs she had held in subside, reabsorbed into her body in some way or somehow. "I'm back," Leonard said, returning after she heard the toilet flush and tap run.

Penny pushed herself back to sit against the headboard as Leonard put on his glasses and switched on a lamp. He handed her his white dress shirt from the previous evening and then located a t-shirt for himself before he climbed back into bed. Penny was just doing up the buttons of his shirt over her chest when Leonard rested a hand on her thigh and the back of her neck and urged her to look at him in the dim lamplight.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I should be asking you that," she said. Leonard frowned at her curiously. "You're not sleeping properly."

"What?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well you were snoring on your side, and so I rolled you onto your back and you stopped, but then you stopped breathing altogether, then you started again, then you stopped, then you started. You weren't breathing for a really long time, Leonard, like a minute. I didn't know what to do, so I woke you up."

"Are…are you sure?" Leonard asked. Penny squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, and at the sight of her about to cry again Leonard panicked. "Okay, okay, it's okay," he whispered. He shifted closer to her on the bed.

"I'm not making it up," she said sadly.

"No, no, I believe you Penny, it's okay. I'm sorry. I am so sorry-"

"It's not your fault, but please don't go back to sleep tonight."

"I won't," Leonard assured her. "It's after five, we can just have an early morning, okay?" He pulled her into a hug as they sat in bed together. "You can go back to sleep if you want," he mentioned. "It's still dark, I'll stay up-"

"No," Penny said as she shook her head. "Let's just, I dunno, make some tea and go into the living room and watch TV."

"Okay," Leonard agreed, but before she could move he gripped her wrist and looked at her. "Penny, how many times?" he asked.

"Um…three that I know of, I think. You never really woke up, it's just like you remembered again that you should be breathing, so you did. It was only the last time that it was for a minute, and it's probably the longest minute of my life so far, out of all of them. And the most terrifying thing I've ever seen."

"It sounds like I might have sleep apnea," Leonard said. "It's when the airway gets blocked and the back of the throat collapses during sleep. Maybe…maybe it's these sinus problems? I feel like I could blow half my head out my left nostril and I just woke up. I need a steam."

Penny shrugged. She didn't care what it was as long as he had woken up and it didn't happen again.

"I want you to see a doctor," she said. "I know it's probably the season and your allergies flaring up and it's just like you said, but I need some peace of mind now Leonard. You stopped breathing and I was right next to you, do you get that? The silence? And after last night was just so perfect, I was scared."

"Hey, hey," he said softly as he held her hand. "Don't worry Penny, I'll go to the doctor. I'll even go to the hospital today if you want me to, since it's a weekend and my clinic is probably closed…we'll get it seen to. I promise it is not going to kill me but I never, ever want to hear you crying like that again. That scared me too, beautiful."

His voice shook and tears filled his eyes, Penny felt her sympathetic nervous system kick in immediately as she nodded and sobbed into her free hand a few times. So much for those last few sobs going away. Nope, they had just been lying in wait so that she could embarrass herself again.

"Come on sweetheart, Penny, please don't cry," Leonard urged. "I'll get the tissues and my nasal spray. You get the quilt and put the kettle on, and we'll find a movie suitable for this early in the morning."

"You can pick," she said. Anything to keep him engaged and awake would do.

An hour later, when Sheldon emerged at his usual time Penny felt much happier, and it had a lot to do with the sounds of disgust and discomfort that Leonard was making from underneath the towel stretched over his head as he leant over a bowl of steaming hot water on the coffee table.

"I think I have an infection," he said in a throaty, nasal voice, before he coughed and spluttered through the steam. "All that cold air, on the roof. This is not pretty. Tissue please," he requested with an outstretched arm. Penny handed him one and it disappeared beneath the towel, though she heard it being used and she scrunched up her own nose at the grotty sound.

"Is Leonard sick?" Sheldon asked from the entrance to the living room. He had frozen in place and was looking between them warily.

"Relax, it's another sinus infection, I'm not contagious," Leonard mumbled from beneath his towel. They had decided not to tell Sheldon about the sleep apnea, because Leonard particularly did not fancy waking up during the night to find Sheldon standing over him, making sure that he was still breathing.

"And I'm taking him to the hospital later today to confirm," Penny said.

"Why don't you just go now?" Sheldon asked. "If you're going to the hospital I assume you mean the emergency room, and that's open all the time. Also, it's better to know if you have an illness as soon as possible so that you can begin treatment. Why wait? Are you still upset, Penny?"

"I'm fine," she assured him. They had made a decision about that story too. "I had a bad dream that Leonard was hurt and it upset me a lot. I didn't mean to wake you up. Leonard wanted to do a steam and have a cup of tea and breakfast before we went anywhere."

"Before a doctor pokes anything up my disgusting nose," Leonard spluttered out amid a snort, still sounding as though he had a nasty, solid head cold. If anything, the steam was making him sound worse. "Which is running non-stop thank you very much. Don't worry Sheldon, Penny's looking after me."

Penny felt possessive and defensive at those words. She laid a hand on Leonard's back, as though to underline his point to Sheldon, perhaps unfairly.

"Oh, that's only proper, I suppose," Sheldon said. He looked between them as though he wasn't sure whether he was being told the whole story, like he sensed something wasn't quite right but he didn't know what the protocol was in the situation. Did he ask about it? Did he challenge them? Did he just make them more tea? Penny couldn't meet his eyes, and Leonard hadn't moved.