A/N: Here's the 2nd one as advertized. Is this the direction you all thought it was going?

Reparata B

Sometimes the memories are worth the pain. Anonymous

Chapter 14

"Penny, I hardly think a recitation of the saga of my lost years will in any way make our decisions about the rest of our lives any easier. Simply stated, as in the Readers Digest mode, after getting my 2nd PhD I lost sight of my goals and spent many, many, many months wasting my time on frivolous pursuits that garnered me much knowledge about women and their needs, and satisfied certain curiosities but little else. Now back to our discussion generated by your sotto voce admission."

She reached up and placed her hand on the back of his neck and pulled them closer. "Sheldon, listen carefully but forgive any grammatical errors and don't interrupt me, okay? I'm speaking from the heart and it never was great at grammar."

They were nose to nose and about an inch apart. He could smell the mint on her breath from her mouthwash and when she closed her eyes and took a few seconds to think about what she wanted to say, he knew she was going to finally tell him. What she was going to tell him was the question.

"Sheldon honey, that night in the hotel was magical and scary. It was magical because I felt like I'd found my other half. It was scary because I didn't know how I felt for sure and was afraid it was the booze and the way you brought me to orgasm so many times that I couldn't trust myself to say how I felt because there were too damned many variables affecting any decisions."

"Penny, you just referenced a scientific principal while unburdening your soul. Very impressive."

"What I feel isn't a burden. Now quit interrupting me! I just need to know if your image of the future has all three of us in it or just you and the baby. If it doesn't, if the image is just you and our little girl doing stuff, then I can't go through with this. We'll stay together until the baby is born and then I'll leave. I don't want to get married just to satisfy some Puritan moral principal you've come up with. You can keep your damned money. I don't want anything to remind me of what I've lost."

He wiped away a tear that threatened to drop off one of her eyelashes and disappear into her hair. She felt emotionally drained. She'd told him the plain and unvarnished truth and now…

"A teardrop is insignificant in a pool of water, but it touches my soul when it runs down the face of the woman I love."

"Who said that?" Her voice was cracking with emotion. She knew she was going to lose it any second. The power had shifted and he had both hands on her heart and she was afraid he was going to rip it out of her chest.

"I did, Penny. There's no one else here but us." He leaned across the chasm that separated them and kissed her, sucking her lower lip gently and then finally pulling her against him as he broke the kiss.

"Please don't cry, Penny. It broke my heart when you cried over Leonard and now it breaks my heart when you cry over us."

"Us? There's going to be an 'us'?"

"The issue was always in doubt, Penny, but I knew that despite our original agreement that I would wear you down and bring you to your senses once I had analyzed that night. Did you really think I'd let the only woman I will ever love slip away without a fight?"

"I suppose you had a grand strategy in place and ready to spring it on me like in Halo, right?"

"No, Penny. I just…sit up. I have something to show you." She sat up and turned on the lamp beside the bed and Sheldon got out of the bed and stood before her wearing only his boxers.

"Don't laugh," he warned her. He turned around and carefully dropped his boxers around his ankles and said, "Look but don't touch. It's very sore. Strange, the last one didn't hurt nearly as much but then I was sober when I got this one."

A million thoughts ran through her head as Penny stared at the small tattoo decorating his right butt cheek – right in the center.

"Sheldon Cooper, you didn't! Yes, you did! My crazy whack-a-doodle Moon Pie got a cool tat! But what is it? 'I C?' What does it mean?"

"Look closer. Figure it out. I wasn't brave enough to get what I wanted so she made the down stroke of the 'P' into a 'One' and added the symbol."

There it was - staring at her in bright red ink outlined in black, still slightly swollen.

1¢

A/N: I'll post another tomorrow or Tuesday depending on YOUR responses...yeah, it's called blackmail but hey, a girl's gotta have feeeeeback since the S/O's extended.

Reparata B