Chapter 7

Over the next couple of days Penny and Leonard's friends all came to hospital, although it was made clear that their visits should be kept brief as it was important that Penny got as much rest as possible. She was making good progress and her doctor said she would probably be discharged from the ICU and moved to a general room within a day or two.

Penny was bottle feeding Grace while Leonard was working on his laptop. He had called Professor Gablehauser who had agreed that could work from home or in Leonard's case the hospital for the next few days

"Leonard I don't think I want to wait to get married" Penny came out and said, Leonard looked up from typing

"What do you mean honey?"

"My doctor thinks that it's gonna be at least two weeks maybe more before I'm discharged from here and then I'm going to need physical therapy, I don't want to wait that long…." Penny's voice trailed off

"So what are you suggesting? That we get married here in the hospital?"

Penny nodded

"Yeah that's exactly what I'm suggesting" Grace had finished feeding and needed to be winded so Penny passed her to Leonard "We're a family now I want it to be official"

Leonard thought through Penny's suggestion for a few moments, he had heard of couples getting married in hospital before although usually it was in the case of a terminal illness

"And its Valentine's Day next week isn't it?" Penny added

When she had first regained consciousness she had been unaware of the date until Leonard had told her it was the 4th February. It seemed very fitting for them to be married on Valentine's Day after the pact they had made the previous year. The more he thought about it the more Leonard liked the idea. They could always have a reception for all their friends and family in the summer when Penny was fully recovered.

"What do you think Grace do you think I should marry your mommy on Valentine's Day?" Leonard asked his daughter as he patted her back, Grace gurgled

"I think she smiled at me" Leonard said although he knew full well it was most probably wind, leaning forward Leonard kissed his soon to be wife

"Let's do it"

It was the night before the wedding and despite Leonard's protests that he didn't want a bachelor party the guys had insisted.

"I am the best man and social protocol dictates that it is my responsibility to throw a kick ass bachelor party" Sheldon had asserted

"Ok but I don't want anything crazy to happen" Leonard had warned them all "I'm getting married tomorrow and I don't want ANYTHING to go wrong"

As it was, on very short notice Sheldon and Howard arranged a bachelor party to be held at the comic book store, despite numerous protests from Raj which neither Leonard not Raj could fathom. After his kiss with Stuart, Raj had had raced out of the store declaring it to have been a mistake. Stuart had tried to call him several times since but Raj was choosing to ignore him, in truth he hadn't been able to stop thinking about him. A little after 9pm and the party was in full swing, Leonard was touched to see all his friends there. In true bachelor party style Howard and Raj had planned a little ridicule for Leonard and had insisted that he wear the Super Girl costume they had got him or be subject to a truth or dare type forfeit. So far Raj had made sure that he kept a cool distance from Stuart until Stuart followed him into the back of the store when Raj went to get himself another beer.

"Raj we need to talk" Stuart began briefly looking behind him to check nobody was within earshot

"I told you it was a mistake" Raj said as he began to peel the label from his beer bottle attempting to avoid all eye contact with Stuart

"I don't think I can" Stuart asserted "I have feelings for you Raj and I'm pretty sure that you feel the same way"

"Look nothing like this has ever happened to either of us so we should forget it ever happened ok?" Raj spoke in a hushed tone and was desperate to end the conversation as soon as possible

Stuart looked down at his sneakers, he was about to share something that he had never shared with anyone even his closest friends

"It has happened to me before. There was this guy I met at Art College, it only lasted a few months but it was pretty intense…"

Raj sighed this wasn't what he wanted to hear. He knew that if his family were to ever find out that he had feelings for another man there would be serious consequences; perhaps they would even disown him

"Look Stuart I really don't want to talk about this… in fact I've been texting Lucy recently and she's agreed to meet up for coffee…"

Lucy was Raj's ex-girlfriend who suffered with social anxiety. She had broken up with him the year before after Raj had tried to push her into meeting his friends

"Is everything ok?"

A voice said the two men turned around to see Howard stood in the doorway. Thinking quickly Stuart told Howard of his plans to paint some comic book stuff on the wall of the nursery as a wedding present for Leonard and Penny as he couldn't afford to buy them a gift. He had been asking Raj to help him get hold of the spare key so that he could paint it the following day while the wedding was taking place. Luckily it seemed that Howard hadn't overheard any of the conversation

"Sheldon is about to make a speech" Howard told them

As Raj turned to leave, Stuart caught his arm and with pleading eyes said

"Raj don't do this please….you can't keep running away from your this…and seeing Lucy again all that's gonna happen is that everybody will wind up getting hurt.."

Raj pushed Stuart away

"Stay away from me!" he hissed

Raj left and Stuart remained in the back of the store, Sheldon had begun his speech and the sound of laughter and mention of names such as 'Joyce Kim' and 'Leslie Winkle' were now drifting into his office. He wanted to be happy for Leonard but right now all he could think of was Raj and his state of complete denial.