While I originally intended this story to be one chapter only, I decided to do more after getting so many reviews from people wanting me to continue this. I should say however that I am also working on two other fanfictions: The Birth of Legends for Fable and United We Stand for Being Human. Also, because I didn't intend to continue this, I need time to create a proper story for it. So if you can just give me time between chapters, I will try to post another. And if I do decide to stop posting, I will say so. By the way, because the two realities in Awake were called red and green respectively, I've decided to give the two realities in these stories names based in the type of watch Leonard wears in each one. The canon reality is called digital, while the pilot reality is called analog.
"Okay, now I know something's up!" Leonard told Gilda as he observed the fancy restaurant she had dragged him into. "Sheldon and Katie may dress up in fancy clothes, but there's no way in hell she'll ever be seen dead in a place like this. This is a place where you find snobs, as she would say."
Gilda signed inwardly while Leanard observed her, trying to figure out her plan. When she had told Leonard to get into his best suit, he had suspected his friend of trying to pull wool over his eyes. But after seeing this ridiculously posh restaurant, he was beginning to get an understanding of Gilda's plan. Honestly, he should have figured it out earlier by how she hadn't been bothered to dress at her best. While she didn't wear her fanciest clothes very often, when she did she gave all her effort in looking her best.
"Alright, just don't get mad okay?" Gilda asked hesitantly, earning a look of annoyance from Leonard.
"You do realize that when you say something like that, it means you know I'm going to be angry no matter what you say." he said simply, while Gilda shrugged in agreement .
"In there is a friend of mine. Liz Parkman, she works as an engineer at the university." she told him, not noticing Leonard become stiff at the word engineer. Every time something reminded him of Howard, he always thought of the version of his friend from this world. "Now, I know how you feel about me and Katie doing this, especially since I'm your ex, but I feel that I am obligated as your friend to stop you from ending up as an old man living alone with ten cats. So I thought you could just have a small dinner with her and-"
"No." he said firmly and swiftly, before storming off. Gilda followed quickly, having obviously predicted this reaction from him judging by her lack of heels. She was right, Leonard hated it when she did things like this. For the last few years, all she and Katie have tried to do is hook him up with one of their friends, never knowing the real reason why he kept refusing.
"Come on Leonard! Me and Stuart need someone to go on a double date with who don't abandon us half way through to have sex!" she exclaimed in distraught manner, referring of course to Katie and Sheldon. Leonard smiled for a second when she mentioned Stuard, before quickly hiding it. He has always been puzzled by how different Stuart was here than back in what he called the digital world.
"I know you mean well Gilda, but please understand that I'm ok. I don't need you, or anyone else, getting involved in my love life."
Gilda spread her hands out, confused. "Love life!? What love life? I'm pretty sure that the last time you had sex was before we broke up nearly six years ago!"
"Shut up will you! Do you have to tell the whole world about my last sexual encounter?" Leonard shouted, feeling embarrassed by some of the stairs the two of them were getting from passing strangers.
"If I'm honest bro, I'm shocked that you've actually gotten laid anyway!" one shouted while walking past in a group, earning a few laughs from his ape like friends. Leonard glared at them, then at Gilda before continuing to walk away.
"Leonard, you should be grateful that me or Katie are trying to get you out there!" Gilda shouted at him. "Because we could have easily called your mother for help."
Leonard froze and turned to stare at his friend, his face becoming pale. "Please Gilda, tell me you haven't called my mother?"
Gilda couldn't stop herself from smiling, liking how terrified he looked. To be fair, everyone would be horrified if their mother became involved in finding them someone to date. Gilda toyed with the idea of just leaving him alone with this possible nightmare, but eventually decided that she wasn't that cruel.
"No, I haven't. But Leonard, I'm being serious. You need to find someone to be with." Gilda said kindly, walking up to her friend. "For years, you've been acting like you're in a relationship with someone when your not. And I know you're not because I've tracked you with the GPS in your phone."
Leonard stared at her in shock for a second, opening his mouth to say something. Eventually however he just shook his head and walked off, wanting to go to sleep as quickly as possible so he can wake up with his wife.
Leonard opened his eyes and smiled as he saw Penny's face. Slowly and gently, in order to not wake her, he slipped his arm that had been around her away from her. He quietly got out of bed, wearing only a white shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, and grabbed his watch from the bedside table and putting it on his wrist.
He opened the door to his room, desiring his morning cup of coffee to wake himself up. It was something he always did in both realities, in order to bring some sort of structure and order to the chaos of his life. When he had first tried to get a grip on things as a child, he had focused on having the same breakfast each day and having specific seats at school to do work. Since then, he has ensured that there is always a routine or difference to prevent the confusion he sometimes felt. Such as his watch.
He entered the kitchen and began, in the same order as he always did, putting together his coffee. As he did so, despite trying to stop it, his thoughts went back to what Gilda had done before he went to sleep in analog. He had a strict rule to never think about what happens in one world when he is in another. It always makes it more likely that he will say or so something he shouldn't.
"Morning Leonard." Sheldon said with a yawn, wearing his blue dressing gown and looking like he stayed up all night with his girlfriend. For a brief second, because he had been thinking about Gilda, Leonard wondered if Katie was here. Mentally he frowned at himself, remembering that Sheldon was with Amy here. And that here, Sheldon would sooner find his faith in God than do half the things the other Sheldon proudly claims to have done with Katie behind closed doors.
"Morning. How'd you sleep?" he asked, wanting to make conversation with his roommate and best friend.
"Fine thank you." Sheldon responded, going to the cupboards to get his cereal.
"You want your coffee black like normal?" Leonard asked without hesitation, quickly grabbing another mug for Sheldon.
His roommate looked at him strangely, placing his box of cereal onto the table slowly, and it took Leonard about a second to realize that. It took him another second to realize why. Sheldon didn't take any kind of coffee here. The other Sheldon did. Leonard mentally began scolding himself, angry for his slip up, as he desperately tried to think of a way to cover for his mistake.
"You know I don't have coffee Leonard. Black or otherwise. It would disrupt my bowel movements and result in a need for a toilet break during work hours." Sheldon told Leonard, worry evident in his eyes.
"Right, sorry. I forgot." Leonard said with a smile, putting the second mug away and flicking the kettle on.
Sheldon continued to stare at Leonard, obviously confused. He looked like he wanted to say something, to speak his mind about something that has been worrying him, but he eventually gave up and carried on making his breakfast.
"Tell me, why do you suppose that you have subconsciously created a dream where your not with your wife?" Robert asked politely, which led to her receiving a groan from Leonard.
"Ok, let's get something straight." He said seriously, looking straight at Robert. "I love my wife. There is no way I would in anyway create an alternate reality where I'm not with her. He'll, when I'm there I refuse all of Gilda's and Katie's attempts at getting me a girlfriend."
"Can we talk about you lack of a significant other, if you don't find it too uncomfortable." Long asked, with Leonard being able to see where this is going. However, feeling that Long is going to somehow get him to talk about it even if he said no, Leonard nodded reluctantly.
"You've told me that your friends have tried before to arrange a date for you. Can you tell me why you have always refused to even talk to any of the people they have tried to get you dating?"
Leonard knew where Long was taking this, and he didn't like it one bit. "Well, I just don't like arranged dates. I want to be able find the future Mrs Hofstadter by myself. It's that simple."
"Is that really the reason?" Long asked after a second of silence. "Or is it that you allow you life to be controlled by these dreams of yours?"
"I'm not saying you don't love Penny. That's not what I was implying. But is it even remotely possible that the reason you're not with her in your dreams is because you don't believe that you actually deserve her?"
"Okay, I have three points to say about that question. One, that is actually a good question. Two, I have thought of it. And three, I honestly began to believe that it was more likely that this was a dream when I started dating her."
"Don't you realize that this is what I've been saying before? You're emotionally too indebted to your dreams that they have prevented you from moving forward with your life. If you continue like this, life will pass you by in seconds and you'll find yourself married to someone who doesn't actually exist."
All Leonard wanted to do was shout at Lee and tell him that Penny did exist here in the analog. But he knew that he couldn't tell Long, or Robert about Katie and Gilda, about how he has met his friends here before. He would see it as signs that he's suffering from delusions and would call the men in white coats, and before Leonard knew it he would be in a straitjacket.
"Why don't you see someone else in your dreams?" Robert asked, appearing to be genuinely interested from Leonard's point of view.
"I can't. It's against my rules." Leonard replied, continuing after seeing Robert confusion. "I have a number of rules and routines to prevent any confusion between my two lives. One rule is that, unless they're the same person, I don't date one person in one place and someone else in the other. To me that's still cheating. Plus, after getting stuck in a love triangle with two women from each life when I was in college, I don't want to run any kind of risk to my routines again."
"I only really dated other people in the other place when I wasn't dating here. For example, one time when Penny had broken up with me but before I started to date Priya, Raj's sister, I had dated Gilda for a short time. But we broke up a little while later because we couldn't be more than friends to each other."
"Dr Hofstadter, please answer me this. If this Penny did exist, and this was all a dream, why do you keep coming back here? Why do you dream of a life without the woman you love?" Long asked, obviously not being able to not seem smug about his question.
Leonard hesitated, having asked himself that same question many times before until he came to a conclusion. He couldn't tell Long what he really thought however. He would think he was insane if he said that he believed both worlds to be real, and neither of them were a dream.
"That's a good question. Here's a better one: why did I keep dreaming of a world with Penny when she had broken up with me?" Leonard didn't bother to hide his smugness, happy when Long frowned when trying to think of an answer.
"Yes or no, do you think Flashpoint should have affected the Arrowverse more drastically than it has?" Howard asked Leonard as the two walked up the stairs of their building, Sheldon and Ran following behind them.
"No." he answered swiftly and without hesitation.
"Yes." Sheldon said at the same time, causing Leonard to look back at his roommate in confusion, though he didn't stop walking.
"What do you mean "yes"? The way the CW is handling the Flashpoint storyline has been amazing!" Leonard asked, while complaining at the back of his mind about how he has to walk up these stairs. In the analog, him and Sheldon live in a different building and because Leonard never met Howard or Raj in that life, the elevator there works perfectly.
"Wrong! So, so wrong!" Sheldon argues, giving Leonard a look. "Flashpoint offered them a chance to do hundreds of changes to the timeline. They could have done anything!"
"But what about Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow?" Howard asked. "They couldn't just change everything about it and expect fans to know whats happening."
"Ooh, don't forget Vixen!" Raj piped in, wanting to be part of the conversation.
"No one cared about Vixen until the actress appeared in live action Raj." Howard responded.
"I'm going to stop this conversation before it gets too far away from the original topic." Sheldon quickly stated, preventing Raj from talking. "Now, what fan watched one show but didn't watch all the shows in a shared universe?"
"Well, not everyone who likes Arrow likes the Flash. Some people have different tastes than others." Leonard answered, feeling slightly happy as he got closer to his apartment. He really wanted to sit down and just relax.
"I loved Alphas, and because it was part of a shared universe, I watched Warehouse 13 and Eureka even though I hated the latter." Sheldon quickly responded, wanting to win the argument.
Leonard was about to say something else when he heard quieter sobbing. Looking around, he saw his friends had heard it as well. Quickly skipping a few of the steps on the stairs, he quickly found the sobbing was coming from his and Sheldon's apartment. Opening it quickly, becoming scared as he began to recognize the voice, Leonard nearly had a panic attack when he saw Penny crying on the chair.
"Penny? Penny what's wrong?" Leonard asked as he dashed to her side, while his friends looked on from the threshold of the apartment. Penny looked to see Leonard and began to cry more, obviously finding it difficult to fin the words.
"Oh Leonard...I..." Penny let out another sob. "I'm sorry...I know I didn't know her that well, but..."
After a few seconds of Leonard comforting her, she eventually took a deep breath and looked straight at Leonard. The physicist could tell that for some reason, she was trying to be brave and strong for him. His fear began to grow bigger and bigger, and horrible thoughts started to cross his mind like a whirlwind.
"Leonard, I...I got a call from your brother. Beverly, she was in...She was in an accident and..." Penny couldn't hold back the tears, and Leonard finally realized what had happened.
"She died Leonard."
Does everyone like this chapter? Remember, reviews are what are going to keep me writing. By the way, I'm not sure what genre I should put this is, but I'm thinking science fiction. Does anyone disagree?