Flowers for Penny
'We apologize for your loss," they say whenever they approach her, their colorless lab coats in a constant stream through the room. The doctors encourage Penny to stay optimistic, positive thoughts bring positive outcomes and all that mumbo jumbo. They supposedly have the best of the best working on a cure for this new development in Penny's body, on level four of the hospital in a small facility. This is a lie of course; the smartest men and women in the building are currently sitting on the floor of her monotonous little hospital room.
Bernadette has purchased coffee for everyone from the cafeteria. She smiles at Penny diffidently, it's strange. It feels as if Penny is a rare form of yeast under a microscope in Bernadette's lab. This doesn't feel normal, which Penny assumes is acceptable, since it isn't normal.
They remain on the floor sipping from plain Styrofoam cups glancing at one another from beneath their eyelashes. A few of them comment on the bitter taste and poor quality of coffee provided for guests, but quiet soon enfolds the room.
Amy is the most brokenhearted of the group. The heart monitor readings and brain x-rays surround her on all sides as she leans against Raj for support. Her pink highlighter is becoming Penny's best friend whenever it circles the deterioration in Penny's temporal lobe and underlines the escalating beat of her heart as the doctors increase her prescriptions in form of a 'cocktail' specifically for this predicament. Not exactly the cocktail Penny would like to enjoy at the moment, but she appreciates their consideration.
Raj and Howard form a power team against the wall, below an ugly painting of seashells. Raj with all of Doctor Hamadryad's personal notes and medical books folded in his lap. His defiant glare as Doctor Hamadryad threatened to sue them makes Penny proud. "Sue us and I will own this hospital. I will have this floor, this wing, and your job, I swear to God." He rips pages out of the journal and tosses them in the wastebasket beside Howard whenever the information opposes Amy's results. The outcome is a much smaller notepad for Doctor Hamadryad and a much bigger pile of recyclables for the cleaning team.
Howard with his cherry laptop hanging unsteadily from his lap hacks into MIT's database recording Penny's progression for the science and medical communities. Within minutes the amount of people working on curing a fatal mistake becomes astronomical, but Penny can tell the results are never to Howard's liking. Intermittently he stares at her like she has an expiration date and he can't understand why.
"No, no, no, no, no. None of this is correct!" Amy scrubs her eyes with the back of her left hand. The highlighter makes an audible pop against the wall above Penny's head; she sighs and stares at the mark. It amuses her. "Amy, I'd like some ice chips, please. Doctor Cooper won't mind." Penny focuses on each word in her head carefully so it sounds reasonably normal. She doesn't notice the concerned faces glancing at her from below. She doesn't notice how flat her voice resonates in the room. She doesn't notice, because she doesn't care. It hurts to care. It hurts to think.
"Sure bestie," Amy whispers. She leaves the room calmly resting her hand on Leonard's shoulder in a supportive manner.
Leonard sits on the floor closest to Penny's bed. He threads his fingers through the bars and clutches her hand between both of his. Penny tries to grin at Leonard in a comforting way, but Leonard's eyes well up with moisture, so she assumes it fails and gives up. Leonard pats her hand in return.
Penny appreciates the support; Leonard has been her rock for the last two weeks. He hasn't left for more than forty-five minutes to run to his apartment for a change of clothes and a shower. His eyes are smudged underneath with exhaustion; his hair is oily. Yet, he stays while their friends try and find a cure.
"Leonard," Penny sighs, "Go home."
"No," they've had this argument before. She's had this argument with every person in this room at one moment or another. "I'm not leaving you. It's my shift tonight, I will not go away." Penny rolls her eyes. She is no longer a friend for any of them. She can't shop with Bernadette. She can't teach Amy about social protocol between girlfriends. She can't fix spaghetti with hotdog bits for Doctor Cooper. She can't make a mean Grasshopper for Raj or ignore Howard. She can't be a buddy; only a job. A burden.
"I love you," she says. "So do this for me. Eat some food, watch some television, and get some sleep." She closes her eyes and focuses on the pain draining from her body. She imagines a warm ball of light slipping between the joints in her hands, down to the tips of her toes, evaporating all of the soreness from her body. Talking is fatiguing. Thinking is exhausting.
"I can't," Leonard presses his forehead into the metal bar beside her, "I can't just leave you here by yourself. Please, don't ask this of me."
"I'm asking this of you," Penny threads her fingers through his disgusting hair. She figures his disgusting hair is her disgusting hair, so she finds it comforting. "You know how much I hate this, all of this. Please tell me you understand."
"Sure," he smiles uncertainly, "I understand." He doesn't understand, but only one person in the room can. It isn't Leonard.
Raj begins to put the journal and medical books in a neat stack against the wall. Penny would kiss him if she had the energy. Howard carefully slides his laptop into his satchel, "I'll drive you home Leonard. I'll sleep on the couch; we can be back in the morning when they run the tests."
Bernadette nods in agreement. "Raj and I can go pick something up to eat. We'll be ready Leonard. Penny won't even notice we're gone," she fleetingly glimpses at Penny, before sliding her purse onto her shoulder. Bernadette seems to be preparing for her demise my imagining Penny is already gone. It's a defensive mechanism, but Penny isn't taking it personally.
Leonard gets up and kisses her briefly on the lips. It's chapped and there's not enough pressure to make it real. She smiles at him anyway and twists her fingers as they leave the room. Amy clearly isn't coming back with those ice chips.
"You understand what is happening," Doctor Cooper says from the corner directly across from her. Penny nods, feeling calm for the first time today. "You understand," he continues, "the probability of finding a cure is 18.36-"
"41 percent," Penny finishes at the same time as Doctor Cooper. 18.3641% is the only thing standing between her and a patch of dirt in an Omaha cemetery. "Yeah," Penny says, she understands.
Doctor Cooper is currently the only person in the world who understands the damage happening to Penny's mind. In order to be considerate, he keeps this knowledge to himself so their friends have some hope. But, both of them know the truth. Penny is now a beautiful mind genius, with an IQ exactly two points below Doctor Cooper, and Penny is screwed.
"Penny," Doctor Cooper heaves a sigh, "in less than two weeks your brain development has decreased at a rapid pace. Based on this, in less than a month you will have an IQ of someone who is relatively brain dead."
"Yes," Penny says again. She's already forgetting names of certain people; certain objects. Her first dog was named Gator; he had strawberry blond fur which grew in tufts everywhere. Her father had accidently run over him when Penny was eight. Her next dog was named—well, he had black fur and blue eyes; a hefty Weiner dog. She repeats these facts constantly in her head if the room becomes too confining. They calm her. Gator; strawberry blond; died when she was eight.
Sometimes she looks at Leonard and can't remember how they met. She can see it in brief clips in her mind, but there isn't a connection between the visual and the emotional. She's a genius-balloon-human. Smart, but hollow.
"I will not promise you a cure; it is pointless of me and would waste both our time."
"I don't expect you-," Penny begins to reply, but Doctor Cooper cuts her off. "However, I have been known to formulate wonderful results. I cannot promise you a cure, but I can promise you a solution. Give you more time, as it were. Bring you back."
"I'm right here, Doctor Cooper."
Doctor Cooper just sighs. He opens his mouth, and then closes it resonantly as if struggling within himself to say something. "Penny, do you remember my first name?" Doctor Cooper frowns from the corner of the room. His hands are fisted tightly in his blue shirt depicting evolution. His face is ashen with fear and suddenly he looks as if he has aged a lifetime in the span of a minute.
"I," Penny swallows. Oh god. Doctor Cooper. Doctor….Cooper, oh no. No, this important. Leonard, Amy, Bernadette, Howard, Raj, Stuart from the comic book store, and…Doctor Cooper, "I-I," Penny chokes. Doctor Cooper likes spaghetti with little hotdogs. Doctor Cooper discusses the binary attributes of subatomic particles and space matter differentials. She gave Doctor Cooper a napkin signed by Leonard Nimoy for Christmas. "I d-don't."
"Penny, you are my best friend. You matter a great deal to me," Doctor Cooper looks away from her, "I thought you should know." He quickly gets up and wipes his hands on the material of his cargo pants. When he opens the door, Penny get's a brief look at Amy Farah Fowler. Her face is splotchy and red and there are tears running down her face fogging her glasses. She reaches for Sheldon, who clings to her hand like a life raft.
"Goodbye bestie," Amy splutters before the door closes. Doctor Cooper doesn't turn around to say goodbye, but holds on to Amy and continues walking.
"I don't know his name," Penny whispers into the overwhelmingly quiet room.
For the first time since the entire ordeal began, she cries.