Author's Note: What is up, my fellow BBT nerds? So, here's my take on what should happen because, let's face it, Leonard and Penny are old news (to me; if you feel different, oh well, they're a great couple) and I felt as if Leonard needed someone who could really fall in love with someone special: Alex Jensen is her name and don't wear it out! I'll hopefully be posting a chapter a week because I've already written a few chapters because I could not get this idea out of my head. I love Leonard and Alex together and I think they'd make an awesome couple. READ AND REVIEW!

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah... I don't own The Big Bang Theory... Blah, blah, blah...

The look between the two silenced the whole living room and all that sat and stood inside. Her eyes widened at the small square velvet box in her shaking hands; her knees shook with such a force that she had never felt before.

His eyes were cast down to his twiddling thumbs, looking everywhere else but her blue eyes that somehow seemed to rock his whole entire world for six years. He wasn't in his normal everyday wear: a zip-up hoodie with his army green jacket on top, a dorky t-shirt underneath showing off his love of the technology of a future space program or his blue jeans that never seemed to get dirty.

Tonight though, as they all ate their carry-out Thai food, he was dressed in a dark gray pair of slacks that his ex-girlfriend Priya had bought him. He wore a light blue dress shirt that tucked in nicely around his boyish frame and he wore a lighter shade of gray vest that Priya had bought for him also. He didn't dress up like this for any kind of occasion, only for occasions where he knew that maybe, this time, that one girl would look at him with a gleam in her eye that would send her right into his arms.

The girl that stood in front of him, Penny, in her dark pair of skinny jeans and a yellow top that accentuated her thin yet curvy figure, couldn't shake the idea of what lay inside that small velvet box in her hands. She had found it in the boys' room when she had been looking for a lost earring a week before while having a wild night that she never thought would happen again.

The audience of seven sat and stood before them as if watching a soap opera unravel, none were taking in the amount of pain and nervousness that the 'soap opera stars' were feeling.

"H-how..." Penny started off, her head slightly shaking at the small box in her hands, her blue eyes never leaving sight of it, although Leonard had felt her stare on him the entire time she held it in her hands.

"I-I... I don't know what to say..." Leonard replied back, his eyes still cast down to the light wood-paneled flooring of his apartment.

"Well, at least he admits it. Now, if only he'd admit it about his work." Sheldon whispered into Amy's ear, thinking he had made a remarkably funny joke. It was when Amy gently slapped his shoulder that he knew that maybe, this time, it wasn't the time to say anything and watch the scene before him unfold.

"I told you that I didn't want to get married! How could you do this to me?!" Penny exclaimed, looking into the dark brown eyes of the man she had broken up with not even two weeks ago.

"Penny, I-"

"No! Don't give me some lame excuse, Leonard! How could you not talk with me about this? You can't just spring this up on me! I-"

"It's not for you." Leonard shut Penny up with the quietest sentence he had ever spoken before in his entire life.

It's not for you. Four words that had just crushed Penny's argument about Leonard pseudo-proposal. The audience of seven were shocked and looked between Leonard and Penny with an angst to see which would speak next.

Raj looked over at Howard who made eye contact with him on the spot. It wasn't a quick glance but, just a subtle one to know that their friend was in desperate trouble. Raj's deep brown eyes slowly made their way to look over at Bernadette who had been looking intently at her best friend Penny; never once looking away though Raj's eyes looked to her to figure out if he should say something or not. Without a drink in sight, he couldn't say a word and looked down at the blue rug underneath the couch sadly.

Stuart sat in Sheldon's desk chair and awkwardly shifted around the chicken pad thai that he held onto, looking away at the group of friends he had come to love.

"W-What...?" Was all Penny had to sputter out before Leonard rubbed his hand through his hair and looked over at his roommate, Sheldon, who, in a twist, gave Leonard a look of understanding and decided to stand up.

"Penny, I believe what Leonard is trying to say is, that item you currently hold in your hand, was not meant for you." Sheldon gave Penny a look as if he somehow dumbed down his intelligence so that her community college drop out mind could understand.

"I got that, Sheldon, thanks." Penny said back in a sarcastic and snappy way, her eyes deathly staring him down.

Sheldon sat back down in his spot next to Amy, his hand placed ever-so gently in his lap.

"Leonard, if this isn't for me, who is it for, huh?" Penny started in a uproarious manner, rolling her eyes and throwing her arms out, the velvet box in her right hand.

Leonard looked around the group of friends and it settled on Alex before he looked away and now, at Penny, matching her glare.

"It's for Alex."

A stunned silence filled the room. Everyone who sat down was thankful they hadn't been standing or else their knees would've given out from the shock of what Leonard just announced.

And then, all eyes turned to Alex who sat in Leonard's desk chair, next to Raj. Her long bright and natural brown hair gently fell over her white knit sweater and her bright blue eyes sparked when she looked over everyone who had their own set of eyes on her, waiting for her to say, or even do something.

"Me?" She asked rhetorically, knowing full well that, yes, Leonard had just told the entire room that that ring, in that velvet box, was meant solely for her.

Leonard nodded and scratched at his brow, his eyes casting downwards again before he moved closer to a stunned Penny, who only blinked and said not a word.

"May I have that back now?" Leonard asked softly, his hand outstretched so that Penny could hand him back that box and ring he spent over two hours purchasing.

Penny's shoulders fell a little, her breath caught in her throat before she looked down to the black velvet box in her hand. It felt like someone was controlling her and she watched as her arm brought itself up and dropped the box into Leonard's waiting hand.

It was then that Penny gained control of herself, spun around and ran out of the apartment, slamming the front door as she ran across the hall.

Sheldon sighed and looked at Amy before she nodded and touched Bernadette's hand. The two doctors stood up and quietly left the room, a much less dramatic exit than their friend had previously done before.

Stuart awkwardly swallowed his pad thai and stood up, taking his lid and headed for the door. "Well, this has been great and I hope we can do it again." He casually said as he slid out the front door and closed it behind him, his footsteps receding down the stairwell.

Howard and Raj stood up and walked towards Leonard who only waved them off, his own way of telling them that he was okay. The two friends looked between each other and then to Sheldon. Howard mouthed the words 'comic book store, now' at Sheldon and the brilliant scientist jumped right up, ran to the closet behind the couch, grabbed his beige windbreaker and trotted out the door with Howard and Raj.

Now, the only people left in the large living room of apartment 4A which was housed in the apartment building at 2311 Los Robles street which sat directly in the center of Pasadena, California, were Leonard and Alex and the two locked eyes on each other as soon as everyone had officially left.

Leonard stood nervously next to the round glass coffee table and ran another hand through his hair before looking at the black velvet box in his hand.

"I-I... I wanted to give this to you when the time was right." Leonard started, his eyes leaving Alex's and now at the box. "I guess now is as good a time as any." He chuckled, walking over to Alex who immediately jumped out of the brown rolling office chair.

"Leonard-"

"Wait, Alex, before you start, I just want to say something: I know we haven't been dating each other that long and it's... it's okay if you say no! Ha ha, I have a thirty day warranty on it." Leonard joked horribly, rubbing the back of his head as Alex held her hands together at the base of her neck.

"Are you done?" She asked, trying to look into Leonard's eyes as he tried keeping his glance away from hers.

"No, no, not yet. If you say no, which you probably are, it's not the first time I've been rejected," his mind immediately went to Penny the night before Howard and Bernadette were to be married. "I'm okay with it." He nodded and reassured himself, not caring if the reassurance was mutual.

"Leonard?" Alex gently touched Leonard's cheek to force him to look into her smoldering blue eyes, the blue eyes that had captivated him for so long.

"Yeah?"

"Yes." Alex smiled before she ran into him and through her arms around his neck, loving the way her small frame melded into his and how the warmth of his body radiated off of him and warmed her.

Alex had been dreaming of this day for so long; imagining it whenever she was working on Sheldon's nonsense paperwork. Alex pulled back from Leonard and for the first time, in either of their lives, they found someone that they could say 'I love you' to and not be thrown under the bus or be ridiculed for it.

A/N: Did you like it? Review and let me know!
-Laania