The Hofstadter Remnants

By: Leese

Rating: T (cos I say coitus a few times, ha!)

Summary: Set straight after the Bon Voyage Reaction. Penny and Sheldon begin to deal with what Leonard left behind. (Lenny, Penny/Sheldon/Leonard friendship.)

A/N: This is the first time I've EVER written anything from Sheldon's POV (second chapter) and it took a long time before I felt like I got it somewhat right, so please be kind! :-) Enjoy!

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CHAPTER ONE: PENNY

Penny, this isn't the way home.

Penny, you missed the turnoff.

Penny, where are we going?

Sheldon hadn't stopped interrogating Penny about her apparently deluded sense of direction since she had turned left instead of right not long after leaving LAX, but she always knew exactly where she had been headed even if she hadn't been able to bring herself to speak. Sheldon would only ask more questions, so what was the point?

"Penny, I don't understand," Sheldon finally concluded from the backseat of her old car. She had finally stopped and the car sat idle in the midst of the full parking lot just metres from the flat, golden, touristy sands of Santa Monica.

The pier and its brightly coloured rides and rollercoasters were laid out on the other side of the lot, out of sight, but if Penny looked around she could see the ferris wheel propped proudly against the blue sky, with its white frame partially whited-out by the early afternoon sun. She couldn't tell if it was moving or not and she didn't care.

The beach wasn't really that far from the airport, it was certainly not as far as Pasadena, and it was the first place that had come to mind as soon as Penny realised that she was going to have to pull over. Penny wasn't ready to go back to Pasadena. She just did not know how to explain that to Sheldon.

"I just need to sit for awhile," she said. Her fingertips rested lightly on the bottom of the steering wheel. She felt sick and numb, if that was possible. She could also sense Sheldon's frown as he leant forwards from the back seat.

"But you were already sitting before we got here," he replied curiously. "Do you want to go to the beach? Because I don't like the beach."

"I know," Penny said softly. She sighed and looked towards the front passenger seat, where instead of Leonard there sat a small box wrapped in paper with gold and silver hearts. Thanks to Sheldon and his big mouth she already knew what was in it, so she hadn't opened it yet.

She wished that she had. Penny wanted a do-over. She wished that Sheldon hadn't been there and she and Leonard could have sat in the car – alone – and she could have opened the gift like a regular person. Leonard would have been able to see her reaction and Penny could have turned around in her seat and held her hair up so that he could fasten the locket around her neck…so that he could have seen that she loved it.

Penny already knew that she loved it and she was going to put it on and not take it off until he got home - she didn't need to see it to know that - but it was something Leonard probably should have experienced and been certain of before he left for four months on a ship in the North Sea.

Anything could happen to him out there.

Penny felt her lower lip tremble and her chin crumple but she pressed her lips together and ordered herself not to cry. She should not have been surprised by how alone she suddenly felt, but she was. She should have been reminding herself that four months really wasn't that long a time, but she wasn't. She missed Leonard, because he was her best friend and she loved him, and the goodbye they had left each other with…it just didn't feel good enough.

It wasn't Sheldon's fault. The fact that saying goodbye to Leonard involved him leaving and her driving away meant it was never going to have been much better, and Penny still would have ended up right where she was, at Santa Monica.

Leonard had resisted the first time they went to the beach. In fact, Penny had nagged and begged and belittled him until he agreed to go, and he didn't have a very good time for the most part. However, she knew he appreciated that getting to the beach every so often was important to her. Penny was from Nebraska. The Californian beaches were something special; they were still a novelty even though she had been on the West Coast for almost ten years.

'I love it here,' she had said to him as they sat on their towels on the sand, far away from the tourist trap of the pier. 'I love looking at the ocean, and the way the sun bounces off it, and no I don't want to hear the physics behind it.'

'I wasn't going to say that,' Leonard had said with a chuckle.

'I like the mystery of it,' she said. 'And the beauty. Sometimes I come here after a bad audition or a generally crappy day, and it helps to clear my head. I just think about floating, and nature, and how pretty it is.'

Penny had looked over at Leonard and seen him staring out at the ocean like suddenly it meant something more than physics to him, too.

'That's good,' he said. 'When I look out there, I think about being out there, and without my glasses…unable to find my way back to shore.'

'You'd be safe with me,' Penny said without thinking. Leonard looked at her and smiled. She thought she saw his lower lip quiver briefly as he nodded. 'I mean it,' Penny had continued, still dangerously switched onto autopilot. 'I want you to feel like you're safe with me even if we can't touch the bottom.'

Penny put the words out there, but all at once they felt too heavy, and she sucked in a panicked breath and stared wide-eyed out at the ocean again. Leonard must have seen the reaction, must have felt the anxiety in her quiet retreat, because he did not press her and he said nothing for a long time.

'I don't come as much as I used to,' Penny finally told him, unable to stay silent forever. They needed to keep talking, to move past what she had just told him she wanted, even though she wasn't ready to say it any other way.

'That's a pity,' Leonard had said. 'It's a pity that Pasadena is so far away. Otherwise you could come here every day.'

His empathy was heartwarming, but Penny still hadn't been brave enough to look at him as she spoke.

'The distance isn't the reason I don't come here much anymore,' she'd said. 'Now if I'm having a bad day or something isn't going well, I just talk to you.'

It wasn't as heavy as what she had said before; it wouldn't drag them down so far. It was a clarification, of sorts, and thankfully it was one that Leonard bought into. Maybe he wasn't ready either. He huffed and laughed a little; in the typical way he made light of his own low self-esteem and self-doubt.

'And that works?' he asked. What he was really asking… Was talking to him was as good as this beach? And the nature, and the prettiness? Because as far as he was concerned he came a faraway second!

'Better than you realise,' she said.

Penny had glanced at him then, and found his brown eyes filled with curiosity and gratitude and affection. Leonard was worth more than he gave himself credit for. Of course, this had all happened before Penny had said 'I love you', but in hindsight that was pretty much what she had told him that day, too.

All Leonard had said in reply was a choked-up, 'Good', and then he leant over and kissed her softly on the lips. That was code for 'I love you too', and Penny now realised how much energy Leonard had put into forcing himself not to say those words in those kinds of moments. He had bottled it up and trained himself not to accidentally say 'I love you', ever, and he was so well practiced that when she finally got up the courage to say it herself, it had still taken him days, weeks, to feel comfortable blurting it out whenever he pleased. Penny had sometimes seen him hesitate either just before or just after he said it, as though he expected her to go all wide-eyed or start shouting.

She hated that she did that to him. She loved that just before at the airport, he hadn't hesitated at all. Hopefully he never would again…because their feet certainly weren't touching the bottom anymore, and it was terrifying.

Her mobile phone beeped and Penny reached for it. She had tuned out Sheldon's jibber-jabber and she truly just did not care about him; just for these minutes she felt like she deserved to be in her own little bubble. She did deserve it, right?

The message was from Leonard and tears filled Penny's eyes as she read it quietly.

'All checked in and at the gate. Flight is on time. I feel incredibly lonely all of a sudden. Maybe you do too. Just remember, in the context of the six years before now and the hopefully sixty years that will follow, four months for us really isn't a very long time. Please don't worry about me, take care of yourself, and go to the beach a lot. Enjoy the sun. I love you Penny. L.'

Penny started to laugh as a tear dribbled out of her eye. She replied, typing a quickly but thoughtfully at the same time. They had both been working harder at being more honest about their feelings with one another, and they had made a pact to keep it going even if it felt awkward with the distance or even if they had doubts or got scared. Besides, if Leonard already admitted that he felt bad, then he needed her to help him be able to walk onto that plane.

'Do you know me or what?' she wrote. 'I am already at the beach, HA! ...Day 1 and Sheldon already hates me for taking him here, but I don't want to go home yet. I forgot how being lonely felt too…not that I ever admitted that I was when we weren't together…but I was. Honey, I'll be fine now tho, I promise. Because this feeling isn't the same as all that. We are just missing each other, but it's in a better way. Also, YOU should take care NOT to be permanently seasick or fall overboard or make a new best-forever-lady-friend or love it all too much, because I love you way, way, WAY too much for all of that. Good luck with the research L, you will rock it like a badass particle ninja! And also the gift is beautiful, I don't care what Sheldon said about it, and I'll keep it close every day until you come home. Love you lots x lots, Penny.'

Message sent.

Penny could not put it off any longer after that, and once she put her phone by her hips she reached for the present and tore it open. In the backseat Sheldon sighed loudly, and it was either because they were still sitting there and Penny was refusing to acknowledge him, or because she was ripping the paper open like a little girl obsessed with consumption rather than savouring it to reuse at a later date like a responsible, recycling adult that Sheldon thought she should have been. Either way, pfft!

"Oh, it's pretty," she said when she finally caught a glimpse of the gold, heart-shaped locket positioned neatly in the box's small cushion. She dug her nails into the sides of the cushion to ease it out, as Sheldon leant forward again.

"It's nine carat gold," Sheldon informed her. "Solid, not plated, so you can wear it in the shower…but it's not waterproof which means you'll have to take it off anyway because Leonard put a picture in there and it will get damaged if it gets wet. I told him that would just create a foreseeable inconvenience but-"

"Were you with him when he bought it?" Penny asked, even though the answer was obvious.

"Yes. He made me go to jewellery shops with him before he took me to the comic book store. He kept asking me which one I thought you would like better, and I said, 'How should I know? Penny likes all kinds of cheap things, particularly cheap meals'. Do you want to know how much it cost?"

"No, shh," Penny said softly. She knew enough about jewellery to know that solid nine-carat gold was just that, regardless of whether or not it was on sale; the price didn't matter.

She used her nail to unclip the locket, and smiled when she saw the photograph inside. It was a miniaturised part of one of the photographs of the two of them that she had on her refrigerator. Leonard must have borrowed it for a few hours; she hadn't noticed. Her face obviously hadn't fit alongside his in the small heart-shaped space, even though Penny knew that in this photo their younger selves were side-by-side, almost cheek-to-cheek, and her arm was wrapped tightly around his neck. Penny didn't mind that she could not really see herself there though, because she knew that was where she belonged in the larger picture and it was Leonard who was missing.

Had she really just texted him that she missed him 'in a better way'? Augh! What did that even mean? At least when they were broken up she still got to see him most days, she got to hear his voice and sometimes she even got to touch him. A stray hand here or there, a compliment about how nice he looked for particular functions. He would smile at her, watch her; he thought she didn't know but she did. Now, nothing changed the fact that Penny might only see his smile on a grainy Skype connection, and she wouldn't wake up holding his hand for four months, something that also happened a lot more often than Penny had ever let Leonard know. That was a stupid secret, too.

When he gets back, she told herself, she was going to be done keeping stupid secrets, even if it gave her that squishy sentimental feeling that hurt her heart.

"Hey Sheldon?" she asked as she attached the necklace to her neck.

"Yes?" Sheldon asked warily and in a bit of a huff. "Can I talk now?"

"Yeah, look I'm sorry," she said. Penny turned around in her seat to look into his eyes. "We'll leave soon. I might…well I want to check on Raj before we go home too-"

"Augh!" Sheldon huffed and rolled his eyes.

"I know you want to go home sweetie, but he's not doing so well either," she explained. Her voice cracked and her eyes darted away from Sheldon's, towards the cars parked beside them and the ferris wheel in the distance.

"Fine," Sheldon said. "But can we stop at the mall first, so I can get something to do while you visit Raj? I won't be any help to him. I'll stay in the car."

"Okay," Penny replied. She sighed with relief actually, because going to the mall and then to Raj's would prolong the trip home even more, and that could only be a good thing. "Hey Sheldon," she said again. "I want you to know something."

Penny forced herself to look back into his eyes as her own welled with tears.

"What?" he asked, lips pursed suspiciously.

Penny cocked her head to one side and sighed. How did she get through to him, she wondered? He could be so difficult sometimes. A part of her wanted to be strong because she knew that Sheldon had insisted on coming to the airport to drop Leonard off because he too was scared and would miss his best friend. He had just admitted that he wanted some time alone, and that was a big deal. He was sad. Penny wanted to comfort Sheldon and assure both him and Leonard that she could help take care of him...but another part of her wanted to be alone as well, to curl up in a ball and cry in her room until Leonard came home.

Penny desperately wanted Sheldon to understand that while she would give him his space when he asked for it, she was still going to have to be the one who put that similar part of herself aside whenever she was with him or the guys, and that was going to hurt her. She had to be strong, and it was going to compound the loneliness. It was going to make the quiet times, when she did eventually go back to her bedroom and try to fall asleep, that much harder.

Penny knew that Sheldon didn't get it, wouldn't be able to feel that for her, or perhaps even understand what he might sense in her, but she just needed some kind of reassurance that he could at least pretend to understand.

"I just want you to know," she said softly and seriously to him. "That not seeing Leonard every day for these next four months is probably going to be the hardest thing I'll ever have done in my whole life, and when he comes back…I'm not sure I'll want to go another day not seeing him again. He knows that already because I told him, but I just…I wanted you to know too."

"Why?" Sheldon asked.

"Um…" Penny hesitated as one of her tears trickled down her cheeks. She touched a finger to her locket as she thought of how to answer that question, as though Leonard might help her. Sometimes talking to Sheldon was like theatre sports, total improv., but sometimes it also required telling him the brutal, naked truth. "Because I know you feel the same way," she said.

Sheldon hesitated. Penny could see him thinking. Maybe he was reaching for a feeling and trying to define it, or maybe he was thinking about what he'd been taught he should say in situations like this. Maybe he was fighting the learned impulse to make her tea since they were nowhere near home.

"No," he said finally, as his eyes flicked from her locket to her face. "I'm not that needy. I don't feel the same way."

"You don't?" Penny asked. Frankly, she was surprised. It had already been proved that Sheldon could barely cope for a day without Leonard. How could he not be aware that he felt the same way? He loved Leonard, needed him. Unless she was wrong and he really didn't? Penny could not help herself, she knew that she probably shouldn't but she asked Sheldon, "Why not?"

"Because I'm not 'in love' with Leonard," Sheldon said matter-of-factly. He did not hesitate. He shrugged. "Leonard had the gall to lecture me on the two of you being 'in love' with each other while he dragged me around the jewellery stores and tried to justify the purchase of that trinket around your neck. Then after the comic book store I went home and instead of getting to read my new comics, I had to make Leonard tea because he was cutting his tiny face into a heart shape for that necklace and he was crying, trying to tell me how much he would miss you as though I'm some kind of imbecile and not a genius-"

"He cried?" Penny asked softly. Usually, asking Sheldon 'why' or 'why not' led to an awfully yawn-worthy explanation of something that Penny did not care about, but this was part of a memory that was attached to a photograph dangling on a delicate gold chain around her neck. For Leonard to have opened up to Sheldon like that, it was priceless. Of course Sheldon was oblivious to her own emotional response, let alone how he might have responded to Leonard. He continued to prattle on pretentiously.

"Yes,' Sheldon said. 'He even needed his inhaler. Honestly, what a baby."

"Was this before the party?"

"Of course it was before the party," Sheldon said. He rolled his eyes. "The party was last night and then the two of you went to your apartment and very likely had coitus, though thankfully it wasn't loud enough to keep me from getting to sleep this time. Congratulations on your humble achievement."

It was Penny's turn to roll her eyes as she interrupted him.

"We didn't 'have coitus'," she said, mocking him and pulling a disgusted face. "For your information, it wasn't just sex last night either. We 'made love'-"

"Ew," Sheldon said as he scrunched up his nose.

"Yeah, ewwww," Penny huffed as she rolled her eyes. She was partly amused and partly angry with Sheldon, and she was trying desperately not to flash back to the previous night and remember how it had been anything but 'ew'.

"It's still coitus," Sheldon stated plainly sooner rather than later. Penny sighed as her tears returned. Why did she always end up defending herself to Sheldon? She knew that Sheldon liked her, appreciated her, relied on her, probably even loved her – or at least loved having her in his life. Why did he always have to belittle her and Leonard to make that all okay for himself?

"Sheldon, I'm sad," she whispered, unable to help herself. She knew he hated being confronted with emotion – he didn't want to see Raj, he called Leonard a baby for crying and needing his inhaler – but screw it, if they were going to get through four months together then Penny had to be sure that Sheldon could cope with this, otherwise she wouldn't be able to cope with him.

"I can see that," Sheldon said softly. He bit his bottom lip before he added with a cute lisp, "I'm sad too".

"Really?" Penny asked, though she didn't expect Sheldon to confirm it. She wiped at her eyes with her fingertips and looked into his. "Are you scared that he won't be okay?" she asked next, that time urging him to answer by her tone. "Because I am, a little bit. I just want to make sure he's okay, always."

Sheldon knew her well enough to know when he should respond, and he cocked his head to the side and frowned. He offered her a practical sort of reassurance.

"You can," he said. "By telephone, and email, and Skype if the connection is good. Unless you think Leonard won't be honest with you, but he does have a tendency to whine when he's unwell or when things are going badly for him…and it's Leonard so that will happen often. As his girlfriend, and as someone who says he loves you very much, I'm sure you'll be informed of every negative experience. Also, he craves validation so badly you'll certainly be made aware of any rare positive outcomes as well. Offer high praise and comfort and he'll be sure to call back in the future. Also, I told him that we wouldn't forget him. He'll come back when his research is complete."

Penny nodded and dried the tears from her eyes that had not fallen. That was all true. Sometimes talking to Sheldon did help make her feel better…and as crazy as that sounded, Penny was really going to be counting on that from him, as they both counted down the days until Leonard got home.

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