There was a knock at the door and Penny looked at her watch. 9 A.M. She was sitting bleary eyed on the couch, her robe wrapped around her, the steaming cup of coffee in her hand. She could feel the warmth from the cup on the palm of her hand. The knock came again. She knew it wasn't Sheldon or Leonard, they knew enough not to disturb her before 11. Sighing, she placed the coffee mug on the table in front of her, stood up and adjusted her robe, and went to the door.
Howard was standing there, and there was a look on his face she had never seen there before. He usually had a half joking, half leering expression on his face and in his eyes. She had never seen him so serious. She swallowed, knowing that the serious look was bad, real bad, and she braced herself for whatever it was he was going to say.
"Penny," he said, and his voice was like gravel, something in it scraped raw.
"Yeah?" she said, looking at Howard Wollowitz in fear.
"Penny, there was a terrible accident at work, at Leonard's lab-"
"Is Leonard okay?" she said, cutting him off, suddenly certain by the look in his eyes and the sound of his voice that Leonard wasn't okay. She couldn't breathe right, she needed Howard to say that Leonard was okay, or that he would be okay.
"He died, Penny, Leonard's dead,"
His words weren't registering yet. She was staring at him and hearing what he said, hearing it again in her head, just a pale echo of his words, 'Leonard's dead,' but it wouldn't make sense. She felt that there would be some meaning to those words in a few minutes, hours, or days. If enough time could pass those words would begin to make some semblance of sense. Right now they meant nothing. Right now she felt nothing.
"What...how?"
She was too stunned to invite him in, it didn't even occur to her to move from the doorway, to uncross her arms, to sit on the couch and pick up her coffee cup again.
"It was an experiment, the laser, I don't know exactly..."
She was numb, bad news, irrevocable news made her numb. But as she watched Howard she saw his lip tremble, saw the tears well up in his eyes, heard the gravel of his voice thicken until he was unintelligible. She shook her head, looked down at her hardwood floor, and then back at Howard's wet face, and something about the way he was looking off to the side made her want to cry. She opened her arms to him, and he fell into them.
In the shower, the steam billowing around her, the warm water working on her muscles, she heard Howard's words again. 'Leonard's dead,' Dead. How could this be? How could it? She had called work, said she couldn't go in today, all week. Leonard. She thought of his awkward way of speaking to her, his sincere, awkward way he had. She thought of how smart he was, how the intelligence burned in his eyes, how the things he said were sometimes so beyond her, but he never made her feel stupid.
Getting dressed slowly, going through the motions, waiting for the news to hit her full throttle, waiting for it to slam into her, knocking the wind from her. It was trickling in, bits of it like raindrops or paper turned to ash, fleeting images floating by, nothing she could hold onto or know fully. Leonard. How could Leonard be dead? She had had chinese food with him last night. She had leaned her head toward him and laughed over a joke he told. Chinese food and jokes and bits of laughter all meant that someone couldn't be dead.
As she brushed her wet hair, darker blond when it was wet, she suddenly thought of Sheldon. Did Sheldon know? He must know. They worked at the same university. Howard knew. Why didn't Sheldon tell her? How was he? She felt the water in her hair making her shirt damp. She didn't care. She only had the strength to shower and get dressed. Her hair would dry however it did and be all fly away pieces of straw blond, and she'd look like she did when she was a kid. She didn't care.
Sheldon. She knew that Leonard and Sheldon were more than roommates and friends, in a strange way. She knew how much Sheldon depended on Leonard. He drove him to work and everywhere. He went with him to doctor appointments and haircut appointments and he anchored him. He dealt with his quirks and leveled Sheldon out. She couldn't count the number of times Leonard had calmed Sheldon down or explained some aspect of the social world to him. She couldn't count the number of times he's had to tell him to relax when his OCD behavior got the better of him. What would Sheldon do without him?