"It's been a long time," Penny says, her features warmed by a smile.
"Indeed." Sheldon returns the smile in spite of himself. Penny steps forward for a hug and is surprised by his lack of hesitation.
"Congrats again on the Nobel. How's it feel, to have completed your life's work and all of that?"
"Oh, Penny, my life's work is never complete. There's always something new to discover." The smile on his face falters. "In fact, I have to admit that the achievement was somewhat... anticlimactic. More of a relief than anything."
Penny raises an eyebrow. "A relief? That doesn't sound like you."
"No, it doesn't." Sheldon chuckles, but the sound is half-hearted. "I solved the unsolvable, and yet here I am, chasing the great dream of all physicists. Maybe I'll find some satisfaction in unraveling the mysteries of time."
"I'm sure you will." Penny places a comforting hand on his arm and takes him in; the dark circles under his eyes, the weary expression, the rumpled clothing. For as long as she's known him, he's been coiled up tight like a spring; neurotic, badgering, eager. Now he just seems... spent.
"You've changed," Penny says quietly.
"You're exactly the same," Sheldon murmurs.
The words hit hard, and Penny knows that something flashes in her eyes. Suddenly she can't look at him. "Leonard's not home yet. I'll make us some tea."
"Leonard. Do you enjoy teaching as a full-time profession?"
The question comes during dinner. In honor of Sheldon's arrival, Penny makes spaghetti with chunks of hot dog, along with garlic bread, bought frozen from the store and baked in the oven. Married life hasn't made her any more of a cook than she was years before.
"Well... sure." Leonard exchanges a glance with Penny; neither of them is used to Sheldon initiating small talk. "I mean, the graduate students are easy to teach because they're there by choice. Sometimes the undergraduates are frustrating, but it's nice to spot the future physics students."
Sheldon nods, takes a bite, swallows. Then he turns to Penny. "What about you? Are you still a waitress?"
Penny resists the urge to flinch. "No. I'm working at a movie store, down the street. It's... fun." She almost says easy, but decides against it.
"That's surprising. I assumed you were still pursuing an acting career."
"I never really— I didn't have much luck with it, as you may remember," Penny says, twirling her fork in her spaghetti. When the urge to hurl the plate at Sheldon's head registers, she smirks inwardly and thinks, maybe not so changed after all.
"I suppose that's true." Another bite, followed by a neat sip of water.
"What about you?" Leonard asks.
"I've been giving university lectures, attending seminars, overseeing physics conferences. The unfortunate side effect of winning the Nobel, I've discovered. I called you because I miss being entrenched in research, and because I do not have the experience in experimental physics that you do. The formulas I've come up with are, to put it lightly, provocative, and I don't dare present them to the scientific community without some sort of concrete experimental evidence."
Penny and Leonard glance at each other again. Did Sheldon just admit that Leonard was the better experimental physicist?
"Well... I'm glad you did call. I haven't done any ground-breaking research in a while, and there's no better person to do it with." Leonard smiled. "Plus, I've sort of missed you. It's been, what, five years?"
"Five years, six months, 48 days," Sheldon says to his plate.
Leonard's smile pinches into something smaller. "Right."
After dinner, Sheldon offers to help with the dishes and Leonard disappears down the hallway for a shower.
"Thank you for letting me stay here," Sheldon tells Penny as he runs a towel over a plate.
"It was Leonard's idea," Penny responds, still feeling a little sore from the dinner conversation. "He said it'd be easier."
"But if you'd said no, he would not have presented the idea to me."
"I guess." Penny scrubs the spaghetti pan relentlessly, up to her elbows in bubbles. "You know," she begins, pausing to blow the hair out of her eyes, "if you'd come to our wedding, you wouldn't have to exchange pleasantries with us at the dinner table."
Sheldon stops drying, but says nothing.
Exasperated, Penny turns to face him. Water falls to the floor in soapy droplets. "Why didn't you come to the wedding?"
"I had to focus on my research," he says simply, quietly.
Penny makes a derisive noise and resumes scrubbing.
Silence fills the space between them for a solid five minutes. Penny does her best to overwhelm Sheldon with dishes to dry, but he keeps up with her and sets down the last dish as she is draining the sink.
"For what it's worth, I regret it," he mumbles. His eyes are focused on the open window above the sink, on the world beyond.
Penny opens her mouth to speak, but she is already alone in the room.
Penny spends half the night and a good chunk of her day at work thinking about Sheldon's infuriating ability to make her feel like a failure. Yeah, so he was able to sacrifice his friendships for his career goals — so what? Does giving up on acting make Penny a bad person? Marriage seemed like less of a struggle. And Leonard loved her, made her feel wanted, didn't insult her intelligence. Sure, she missed the thrill of being on stage, the excitement of pulling emotions out of a crowd, but let's be honest: How often had she actually been able to do that? She was passionate about acting, but as casting director after casting director had told her, she was all passion and no structure. No direction. She couldn't even land a role in a lame local advertising commercial, and that seemed like a sign to her that she needed to stop trying to get her foot in the door.
Yeah, but acting is only one aspect of the business, whispers a nagging voice in the back of her head. You like writing screenplays. But instead of focusing on that, you just gave up. You work at a movie store, for chrissakes. That's like a slap in the face.
"Hey, where can I find the Lord of the Rings movies?" a customer asks, yanking her from her thoughts.
Penny smiles and tries not to grit her teeth. "They're just over here. I'll show you."
Leonard and Sheldon are hard at work when Penny returns home. They've set up shop in the basement, and are busy tinkering with metal and wires and buttons.
"Any requests for dinner?" Penny asks at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh, just whatever," Leonard responds, waving a hand behind him.
Sheldon straightens and glances at her. "How was work?"
Oh, that's rich, Penny thinks. "Just fine."
Back in the kitchen, Penny cracks open a dusty recipe book and decides to make the most complicated meal she can find.
I started this at a completely different point in the story's timeline, but I got so caught up in this part of it that I decided to discard the rest (for now). I like the idea of Penny, Sheldon, and Leonard interacting years after the show's current timeline, almost as strangers, and examining their choices and regrets.