Sheldon also had a restless night. He spent half the night castigating himself for not kissing Penny back, and the other half hating himself for wanting his late best friend's widow. The funny thing was, his attraction to Penny was about more than sexual desire. Of course, he thought she was beautiful and always had. But what he really wanted was for her to stay with him, to share every aspect of his life. He wanted her in his bed at night just so he could hear her voice in the dark and smell the green apple fragrance of her shampoo. He even wished Leah was his own daughter, even though he valued the knowledge that some of her appearance and personality was a legacy from Leonard.
Yesterday, he believed that he would do anything for Penny. Today, he knew differently. It didn't surprise him to discover that his love for her was selfish. After all, Leonard had told him for years how selfish and difficult he was, and he knew it to be true. If he really loved Penny selflessly, he would have given her what she needed, whether it was comfort or security or just the temporary rush of endorphins from coitus. Instead, he wanted everything, for her to love him with her whole heart and not just as a best friend. Well, it had been slightly over a year (one year, one month, and eighteen days, to be exact) since Leonard had died, and her late husband was still first in her heart. Maybe he always would be, or maybe she would meet someone else and move on. He pondered the idea that perhaps they had been friends too long for her to ever consider him as a romantic partner.
If he declared his feelings for Penny, it would also mean he would have to revisit one of the worst decisions of his life: engaging in coitus with Amy. The events which had precipitated the fateful decision had begun the night that Leonard returned from the Hawking research cruise. Sheldon had known, intellectually, that if Penny and Leonard didn't break up again, they would most likely end up married. He also knew that Leonard had proposed to Penny at least twice to his knowledge. Perhaps he had relied too much on Penny's fear of commitment to maintain the status quo indefinitely. Whatever the cause, he had been completely unprepared for the emotional turmoil their engagement elicited in him. The most baffling part was the animosity he felt toward Penny. Shouldn't he have been more upset with Leonard? In time, he realized that Penny was the one he felt like he was losing. Leonard would stay friends with him, but Penny would move on, doing whatever it was young women with no career did when marriage to a certain partner made it unnecessary for them to work to support themselves.
Sheldon had avoided Penny for weeks after she proposed to Leonard. She was correct in assuming that he was angry with her, but she was wrong about the reason. Sheldon couldn't quite bring himself to hope Penny and Leonard would break up over the stress of planning the wedding, but he had to admit he fantasized about it. Finally, he took a drastic step. After careful research, he went to see a different doctor than his usual provider. He complained of feeling depressed and not sleeping well. He lied about thoughts of suicide, but fortunately for him, the new doctor had merely interpreted his facial tics as discomfort. Sheldon walked out of the exam room with a prescription for antidepressants in his hand.
Sheldon had promised his mother he would never do drugs when he first moved to California, but if he didn't find some way to control his emotions, he was afraid he would do something worse, something he would regret. As it turned out, that was exactly what happened anyway. The pills worked as he had hoped, enabling him to smile when required, to treat Penny like normal, and to do what was expected of him as one of Leonard's groomsmen. Originally, Leonard had asked Sheldon to be his best man, but then Leonard's mother had gotten involved. In an extension of some Hofstadter family squabble Sheldon didn't understand (and didn't want to), Beverly pressured Leonard into making his older brother Michael the best man in Sheldon's stead. Truthfully, Sheldon was relieved that he would be standing that much further away from the happy couple when they said their vows. When the big day finally came, Sheldon doubled up on his meds, allowing him to smile and be numb to the fact that his world was shattering around him.
Then just like that, the day was over. Penny was gone, lost to him forever. Sheldon spent the next two days curled up in a fetal position on his bed. On the third day, he stumbled out of bed and tried to figure out how to go on with his life. He checked his phone and found several messages from Amy. She was all he had left, but at least he was fairly certain she wouldn't abandon him. In fact, he had tried on more than one occasion to break up with her, but she was crafty and manipulative like the proverbial female fox, causing him to label her with the sobriquet "vixen". He'd known what she wanted from him for a long time. Now he decided that maybe if he gave in to her, it would ensure that one person, at least, wouldn't abandon him.
His plan had been born out of despair and a chemically induced detachment. He relied on the pills once more the evening that he invited Amy to spend the night. Even under the numbing influence of the antidepressants, there was a sense of wrongness that permeated the ordeal. He was dismayed that his body responded to the physical stimuli, even with his eyes tightly shut and his hands balled into fists at his sides. When he realized that any future mention of coitus would bring to mind in vivid clarity this act with Amy, it made him physically ill. He was absolutely convinced that he would never want to repeat this experience again.
He had tried to escape his former life, to maintain a safe distance from attachments, both physically and emotionally. He threw himself into his research, striving to forget Amy, Leonard, Penny and everything he had done. His intense focus ultimately resulted in a Nobel, but it couldn't prevent a certain blonde former neighbor from worming her way back into his heart. She wouldn't give up on him. She scolded him and sent him care packages and made him snicker over lolcat physics jokes. On the evening of his acceptance speech, as he looked over the crowd of distinguished scientists and other notables, he only saw one person: Penny. If he didn't have a name for the intense longing that swept through him when he saw her, it dawned on him over the next few weeks in the aftermath of winning the Nobel. Without her, all his success meant nothing. He only wanted her. Realizing that he was in love with Penny, that he had probably loved with her for years, came as a shock. Once the truth occurred to him, he couldn't help himself. She may be married to his (former) best friend, but that didn't stop him from using the sudden excess of wealth that came with the Nobel Prize to bring her back into his life. Over the years, he had told himself that he was content just to have her be a part of his life. Now, although he saw a chance that the two of them could be something more than friends, his fear kept him from revealing his feelings. The risk of losing her was just too great.
Leah's first birthday had been a low-key affair since it had come just a few weeks after Leonard's death. Now that Leah was turning two, Penny seemed determined to make up for it. She booked a party at a toddler play place and invited all Leah's little friends (such as they were at the age of two) from play group. Sheldon offered to fly Penny's parents out for the weekend. He also bought Leah a savings bond, to help Penny start saving for her college tuition, and a rather frivolous purchase of a pink floppy-eared stuffed bunny.
At the party, all the toddlers seemed to be enjoying themselves, if the noise level was any indication. Sheldon noticed Penny's mom, Connie, had cornered Penny and was talking to her earnestly. Penny didn't look very happy. She seemed to be mostly listening and nodding, a tactic Sheldon had often employed when his mother would go off on one of her rants. He sighed, wishing Connie would leave her daughter alone so she could enjoy Leah's birthday.
"Penny dear, have you ever thought about moving back home?" Connie was saying.
"You mean back to Nebraska?" Penny asked in surprise.
"Yes, dear. Your father and I would love to have you and Leah closer, and there really isn't anything left for you in California now that Leonard's passed," Connie said.
Penny grimaced. She had always hated that euphemism.
"With the work you've done for your... friend, I'm sure you could find a good job as an executive assistant or some kind of event planner," Connie continued, taking Penny's silence as assent.
Penny frowned. "I'm not alone out here, Mom. I do have friends. I'm not totally desperate."
Her mother arched an eyebrow at her disapprovingly. "That may be true, but they have their own lives. You need to do what is best for you and your daughter now. No friends will ever love you like your family does."
Penny bit her lip. It was true that after Leonard's death, her friends had gradually drifted away from her. They didn't seem to know what to say or how to act around her anymore.
"What you're doing now isn't healthy," her mother pressed on. "I can see that you've gotten emotionally... entangled with someone who reminds you of Leonard. But from what you've told me, Sheldon can't or won't ever give you the kind of love you want. I'm not wrong about that, am I?" Penny looked down, her silence answer enough. Connie continued, "You deserve a man who can love you with his whole heart, and he's not the one. You need to make a clean break and get away from here. Come back home, Penny."
As Penny listened to her mother, her heart was breaking. Mom's right. I can't just keep hanging on to Sheldon for the rest of my life, Penny thought. He'd given them a home, and emotional as well as financial support. And how had she repaid his kindness? By mooching off him and having far too many lascivious thoughts about her tall, dark and self-proclaimed asexual friend. It was time for her to stand on her own two feet again. She didn't really want to move back home, but she appreciated her mom's offer. Plus, she knew if she went back to Nebraska, Leah would have the chance to get to know her grandparents (the sane, normal ones) better.
"I'll think about it, Mom," Penny said at last, with a sigh.