A/N: I promised everyone a happy ending.
Reparata
Chapter 9 Moving On
The Arbor
Princeton, NJ
Penny pulled the oxygen mask off her face and wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her dress. The EMTs had been called and had Penny on an IV drip of something and oxygen. She was lying on the thick carpeting and staring up into the concerned faces of Beverly, Jislane and the waiter.
"Ma'am, you need to keep the mask on. You were unconscious and unresponsive to stimuli and we'll just keep things in place until your stats are all in the green. Can you tell me what happened?"
"He's not dead. I would know it if he were. There'd be a disturbance in the Force if such a great mind were extinguished. He's alive and none of you seem to give a shit!"
Beverly looked at the EMT and said, "She's overwrought. She just received news that a dear friend was lost on an Antarctic expedition and she's been under a lot of strain lately – "
"Bullshit! I was fine until you – until – he's not dead! I'd know it. I'll prove it. Get this crap off me and let me up."
The EMT looked at her partner and nodded. The young woman's heart was racing and her BP was nearing a danger zone and it was SOP to inject a sedative to prevent stroke or damage to the heart.
"No! Don't you daaaarrrrrree…" Penny said as the drug took hold. The EMT glanced at the older Hofstadter woman who seemed to be evaluating everything.
"Dr. Hofstadter, it's standard procedure to – "
"I know. I helped write the protocols. I don't recommend hospitalizing her unless her stats continue fluctuating. She's just in emotional turmoil and denial. Perhaps keeping her in the ER for a while might be best but she'll be better off surrounded by people who care for her. I'll take responsibility for her."
"No, Beverly. She'll be better off in her own home. We can stay with her for a bit. I'll call my husband and tell him I'm spending the night with Penny and why."
Over the next few days Jislane and Beverly took turns staying with Penny. She was despondent one minute and calm the next. Her 'little white pills' were her salvation. That, and her undying belief that Sheldon Cooper was alive.
Penny seemed better and was on the phone one afternoon when Jislane walked into the kitchen to get a refill on her coffee. She almost dropped her cup when she heard Penny say, 'That's what I said to the other ticket agent. One-way to the South Pole'.
Beverly Hofstadter appeared in Penny's kitchen 15 minutes later after getting a frantic call from Jislane.
Penny was still on the phone arguing with yet another poor soul about getting a plane ticket to the South Pole. Beverly took the phone from her hand and spoke into it, thanking the woman for her patience and hanging up.
"Penny – "
"Don't. Don't say he's dead. He's not and I'm going down there and find him if I have to rent a plane and fly down there."
"I was simply going to say that there are no commercial flights to the South Pole. You have to fly to Argentina and then convince bureaucrats that you're not crazy and have clear evidence that despite the facts, Sheldon Lee Cooper is alive somewhere in the –60F temperatures after exhausting his food and fuel some weeks ago. It should be simple, Penny. Let's sit down and write up a plan…"
Reluctantly, Penny agreed to grief counseling with one of Beverly's colleagues. "You're not thinking straight, Penny. Sheldon is gone. You need to accept the facts. This will help you come to grips with your grief."
She seemed fine for a few days, even going to lunch with Beverly and Jislane and a catching a movie that evening.
She disappeared two days later without leaving a note.
Sobral Meteorological Station
38 days after his 'death'
'Baby, this is crazy. You can't just hold the damned transponder backwards and 'walk away' from it and hope to hit Belgrano II. You'll die out there on the ice and no one will know anything about the sabotage.'
"If you had been paying attention at all, you'd know that I left a detailed evaluation of my suspicions on paper for the Summer Expedition to find and act upon. I also left them an I.O.U. for the cost of the food and heating fuel. My mother always said that a guest should be meticulous in returning a guest room to a better state than when one arrived so I cleaned it using those pitiful supplies they left behind."
'I still say you should have tried to fix the radio, Sheldon. You're a frikkin' genius and you just looked at it and pronounced it 'deader than a doornail?'
"The power supply was missing and the maintenance schedule showed that a new one would be included with the Summer Expedition's equipment. Even I, genius extraordinaire, cannot cobble together a substitute out of what's available here."
'Sheldon, pleeeease don't do this.'
"Jules must be beside herself with worry and I can't have that, can I? No, my mind is made up. We're leaving in the morning. It should only take 4 days providing the weather doesn't turn nasty and I'm taking supplies for twice that long. "
'WE? What's with this 'WE' shit, Moon Pie? You've lost your frikkin' mind and I'll just stay here with it, okay?'
That was their last conversation.
Mount Ivy Church
Outside Galveston, TX
43 days after his 'death'
Howard, Bernadette, Leslie Winkle and Rajesh Koothrappali met at Sheldon's mother's church for a memorial service. Leonard was unable (or unwilling) to attend and Penny had disappeared and not even her parents knew where she was.
The religious portion of the service was brief with a simple prayer and then a series of eulogies given by his mother, his sister and surprisingly enough, Raj.
His was simple and heartfelt.
"Sheldon Cooper was a pain in the butt. He was demanding, arrogant, unyielding and insufferable but he was also the kindest man I've ever known. He got me a job when my grant expired and I was facing deportation. He created it just so I could stay in the U.S. He loaned money to people and never expected to be repaid. He loved us all in his own unique way and he was my best friend and I shall miss him until the day I die."
Missy drove them to the airport and hugged Raj the longest. "Y'all come back here anytime, Raj. I know Shelly was hard to deal with what with his germaphobia and his OCD but he was my brother and your words helped us all remember how good he was underneath all that armor plated crap of his."
Raj just nodded, unable to overcome his speech problem. Odd though. He had no problems at all delivering his eulogy. Sheldon would have been tickled by the irony.
Geology Team #2
Equipment Recovery
Argentine Antarctic Research
They were a man short since Duarte had a bad stomach and so pulling up the auger was a Hurculean task with just the three of them. They were struggling to free it from the borehole when someone grabbed hold and they all pulled and it came free.
"Good job! May I trouble you for a ride into Belgrano when you've finished up here?"
Permanent Station Belgrano II
The radio operator woke the Chief of Research and told him that Geology Team #2 had reported that they were returning to Belgrano ahead of schedule and that a great discovery had been made. They would be arriving in less than 30 minutes.
They requested that the Chief of Research have everyone assemble in the mess hall and join them in their celebration. It was a highly unusual request but then again, a 'great discovery' wasn't made every day so he agreed and passed the word throughout the station.
Eduardo Duarte was angrier than usual. He should have been on the team that made the 'great discovery'. It was a flare up of a recurring ulcer that kept him from going out with the team. He popped another antacid tablet and waited in his room for news of 'the great discovery'. He was too ill to attend.
Time passed and suddenly there was a great cheer from the mess hall and soon there was the sound of celebration and music and more cheering.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Duarte made his way unsteadily to the mess hall. What he saw made his bowels loosen and he staggered to the lavatory where he threw up blood and tried to clean himself up before someone saw him.
'God damn you, Cooper! What will it take to kill you?'
Dr. Juliana Parea's Apartment
Buenos Aires, Argentina
8pm local time
Days were easy. She lost herself in her work and her teaching. The days seemed to fly by as long as she avoided other faculty.
Evenings were hard but the nights – the nights were long and dark and she cried herself to sleep most nights.
Tonight would be different.
Juliana cleaned her apartment, did a load of laundry and ironed what needed to be ironed and folded the remainder and put it away. Her apartment was spotless. Everything was carefully put away and her 'treasures' were carefully labeled for distribution to loved ones.
She left a note on the dining room table for the general public and another for her parents, begging them for their understanding and forgiveness and their prayers.
She carefully counted out the pills and placed the others back in the small bottle and replaced the bottle in her medicine cabinet. She poured herself a glass of wine that they'd both come to enjoy, her perhaps a little too much at times, and used it to wash down the pills.
Juliana lay down in bed, took the framed photograph of her and her beloved and put it on her chest and crossed her arms over it, together once more, if only in her mind and heart.
"I love you, Sheldon." She closed her eyes and thought about all that might have been, of children and family and old age and -
There was a knock at her door. A quick staccato and then a pause followed by a louder knocking. Then banging.
'Damn it! Can't I die in peace?' She rolled off the bed onto her feet, momentarily unsteady, and placed their picture on the bed and whispered, "I'll be right back, my love," and walked out into the living room to answer the door.
It was a University security officer and he looked relieved when she answered the door.
"Dr. Parea, we have been trying to reach you all evening. There is an urgent need for you at the University Chancellor's office. Your presence is required and I am here to…Dr. Parea? Are you ill?"
"No, but I need to…I need to…" and her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into the officer's arms.
Princeton University
School of Applied Sciences
Leonard walked up the 4 flights of stairs to his office, dreading the afternoon when he had office hours but no students scheduled. It gave him too much time to think about the mess he'd made of his life, all the mistakes he'd made and how foolish he'd been to ever think that someone as special as his ex-wife would put up with his shenanigans as long as his mother had his father's.
He hated to admit it to himself but Priya had bored him. After the infatuation wore off, he found her to be shallow and self-centered, craving new things in life and new men. What he thought was a new beginning was just a rerun of previous episodes of Leonard Wants Priya But Loves Penny.
Okay, so he was a dick. He knew that, now. He learned the hard way that having wasn't nearly as good as wanting and he'd had the best thing in his life and had literally thrown her away.
His dad had introduced him to a therapist and cautioned his son that 'this woman takes no shit, no prisoners and no excuses, Leonard, but you'll be a better man after going through even just a few sessions. I know I am. Don't make the same mistakes over and over like I did. Break the cycle and be happy."
He tried. He went to therapy sessions twice a week and even sat in on a group but it was Penny's abrupt disappearance that made all the difference. He was worried, panicky even, about where she was, if she was okay, if she was alone…the last thought had shaken him. What if…what if she wasn't alone?
Sheldon's death had shaken him but it had really affected Penny more than anyone. His mother had told him exactly what had happened and he felt a surge of bitterness but recognized it for what it was – petty jealousy. She'd called out for Sheldon not him. Any why shouldn't she? Sheldon hadn't betrayed her. Sheldon hadn't cheated on her. Sheldon had been a true friend even when it killed him to do so.
Sheldon was the better man for Penny but now…now it was too late.
Omaha, NE
Penny Ford Hofstadter had finally been broken by life. The first blow was the discovery of Leonard and Priya. The second was her admission that she had repressed feelings for the whackadoodle physicist and then the mortal blow: Sheldon's death on the ice. It had all proven to be too much for her and she cracked open like an egg. Unable to do anything to change the past, she was determined to change the future but needed a safe haven to do so.
She went home to Omaha and her childhood home and told her mother everything that had happened since she left with Kurt for the bright lights and limitless opportunities of Hollywood.
Everything.
She made her parents swear to keep her location secret. She needed time to put herself back together and decide on what to do with the rest of her life.
Her parents might be uneducated farm people but they had good hearts and could see that their youngest was hurting and needed someone to shepherd her through her bitter unhappiness. Jenny, her mother, talked with people at church and got the name of a 'grief counselor' and arranged to have Penny meet with her at their home.
It had been a fiery first encounter. Penny felt betrayed yet again by people who were supposed to love her and care for and about her. She lashed out at everyone and finally just dropped onto the couch and sobbed.
"I've seen this before. You two go make some coffee or something, maybe take a walk and let me talk with her. This," she gestured towards the sobbing blonde, "is not at all unusual. In fact it's a healthy reaction to dealing with so much crap hitting her at one time. Go. I've got this."
Penny met with Helen, the counselor, daily for nearly a month. Each daily session, some tear-filled while others were punctuated with soft laughter, helped and it was just a process of reconciliation, as Helen told her. "Penny, you've been through a series of tremendous personal and emotional changes. Marriage, relocation away from friends and family, a cheating husband, a divorce, and finally the death of someone you may have harbored feelings for but never admitted."
The daily sessions devolved into chats between friends as each shared a little more of themselves with the other until finally Helen asked Penny the question that she'd been trying to answer for herself.
And that's how she came to find herself where she was, sitting in a hard wooden chair in a dark hallway just waiting.
Leonard saw her sitting there, the most beautiful and frightening thing he'd ever seen. What he said next would determine so many things and so he asked the same question the counselor had asked her in Nebraska:
"What do you want, Penny?"
His voice was an octave higher than normal but he didn't care about how he sounded. When he saw Penny's red and puffy eyes his heart stopped and started up again at her reply.
"I want to start over."
Ministro Pistarini International Airport
Buenos Aires
He hadn't shaved since he'd left Belgrano II nearly 60 days earlier on his ill-fated data collection foray and he looked like a wild man from the shoulders up. His face was deeply tanned by the arctic wind and sun and his blue eyes seemed to swirl with electricity as he made his way down the concourse to where the crowd of people were standing to greet loved ones and acquaintances.
The flight from the Antarctic Research Station had been delayed a few days due to weather and then he'd had to submit himself to being poked and prodded by government doctors before he could be released to make his way home to Buenos Aires on a commercial flight.
He'd spoken with Jules over the radio as soon as she was able to make her way to the University's radio room. He'd learned of her accidental overdose from the Chancellor himself who'd made the admission only after assuring Sheldon that 'Dr. Parea was under a great deal of strain, my friend, and obviously she lost track of her dosage of prescribed sleep aids but she is under a doctor's care and is overjoyed at having her own Lazarus back from the dead, as are we all."
Sheldon didn't travel well and anticipation at seeing Jules simply made the entire episode seem endless and he was impatient – hardly descriptive but an apt descriptor – to hold her in his arms and ensure that she was healthy and still loved him.
Juliana saw him first since he was so tall. He was striding towards her but he wouldn't get there soon enough for her. She pushed past a security guard and rushed to him, throwing herself into his arms and breaking down in tears.
The tearful reunion was captured by paparazzi who had been tipped off (no doubt by the University's Press Office) to the arrival of the new Lazarus, back from the frozen wastes of Antarctica.
She buried her face in his neck and wept, apologizing for her lack of faith in him.
"I should have known, Shel, that you weren't dead. I should have known that nothing could stop you. I should have known – "
Sheldon pushed her away and held her at arms' length, a stern look on his face unlike any she'd seen. 'Oh, no. He's disgusted with me. He – '
"No wife of mine will ever require the aid of chemicals to sleep so long as I can hold her in my arms and assure her that all is right with the world, Juliana Parea. So, I believe it makes perfect sense to forego this stupid ritual of a long engagement and marry as soon as possible."
"YES! As soon as the banns are posted and my family can meet you and…and there is so much to do, mi amor…"
"We will sit down together and draft a plan and then when it is done, take some time and meet your family and mine. I'm sure all this has taken quite a toll on my mother and sister. I was unable to reach them from the Research Station…"
Whatever else he had to say was lost in a kiss much to the delight of the photographers.
He put his arm around her and picked up his backpack and walked to the exit.
"What's in the backpack, Shel?"
"It's my urban survival pack, Jules. One never knows when the Apocalypse might rush upon us and we must be prepared…"
A/N: Another chapter and then an epilogue follow. I promised EVERYONE a happy ending. Well, you Shamies lose, but who really cares? You may have Shamie on TV but we rule the FF world.
