AN: I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone that has offered kind words of support during my mourning period; they have really helped me want to keep on writing and I appreciate each and every one of you. It's been a long time coming, but hopefully I will now be able to bring this story to a satisfactory conclusion over the next few chapters...Thank you again, Janey xx

When Penny got back to the house later that evening she saw the red front door decked out with a bushy evergreen wreath decorated with pinecones and topped with a gold edged red ribbon bow. She pushed open the front door and called out a greeting.

"Anyone home?"

"In the kitchen, bestie!" Amy's cheerful tone rang out from down the hallway and Penny followed the sound of Christmas music and the smell of warm cookies. She pushed open the swinging door and leant against the frame as she watched Leonard fiddling with a strand of twisted wire and what looked like a pile of jingle bells.

"Whatcha doing Leonard?"

"Making a Christmas wreath." Leonard replied without looking up, he squinted a little as he tilted his head to the side. "Amy, I can't get this to go right…can you give me a hand?"

Amy leant down and with a few deft moves, untangled the mess in front of him and secured the small cluster to the top of his wreath. "There, all you have to do is tie a floppy bow above the bells and you're all set." She placed the wreath down onto the table and patted Leonard on the shoulder. "You did great for your first attempt…although next time try cutting smaller lengths of wire and you won't get into such a tangle."

"Thanks, Ames." Leonard smiled up at her and proudly waved his wreath at Penny. "Look what I made!" Penny walked over and slid onto the chair next to him, carefully running her finger over the embellished wreath.

"It looks great, sweetie. Is that mistletoe that you've twisted in the fir?"

"Yup, picked it myself." Leonard jerked his thumb at his own chest and Penny pecked at his cheek.

"You guys look like you had fun today...wish I could have been here." Amy glanced over at her friend and without even asking slid a mug of coffee over with a plate of cookies.

"Thanks, Ames…ooh, Superman cookies! I bet I know who made these…" Penny turned one of the cookies over in her hand and winked over at Sheldon who was putting the finishing touches to his own wreath. He looked up from where he was attaching several candy canes in a criss-cross pattern at the bottom and smiled in return.

"Amy bought them as a present; aren't they fantastic?"

"Yeah…they taste great too." Penny nibbled the corner of the cookie to test it and then popped the rest straight in her mouth, nodding in appreciation. "You had quite a productive day then? Get much done in the house?"

"Not really, I declared today a holiday as we've all been working so hard. We started going through some furniture in the barns and the guys moved some of the stuff that we're not going to keep into one of the other barns…" Amy busied herself at the kitchen counter, preparing the ingredients for a vegetable lasagne. She had already pre-soaked the pasta sheets and Sheldon had whipped up a quick cheese sauce after lunch. She was now blanching the thinly sliced vegetables so that they were slightly softened. Amy had picked up some lacto-free cheese at the store so that Leonard could enjoy the meal without suffering from any nasty after effects.

"That reminds me, Sheldon and Amy had a couple of dressmaker mannequins out in the barn that they put in the discard barn. Howard's Mom wants one of them but I didn't know if you wanted the other…you always look at them when we go anywhere an antique store." Leonard started clearing away the snips of wire and bits of leftover greenery from the table as he spoke to Penny. She gave a small hum of agreement as she munched her way through Darth Vader and a Batman cookie, a soft smile curving her lips as she watched Sheldon carefully finishing off his wreath and placing it gently on the sideboard until it was ready to be hung. If Penny knew her best friend like she thought she did, Sheldon's Lego wreath would get pride of place over their front door and Amy's own creation would hang around back. Howard finally let out a sigh of satisfaction as he tied a large gold ribbon to the bottom of his wreath and held it up for inspection.

'What do you think? Not bad for a little Jewish boy, huh?' Everyone looked over and nodded in approval, Howard had twisted thinner strands of gold ribbon among the evergreen and then tied small red baubles in little clusters around the outside. 'I thought I'd give it to Ma, she loves that Christmassy gold colour.'

'I'm sure she'll love it, Howie.' Penny assured her friend, as he carefully packed the wreath into a slim box that once contained a dress shirt of Sheldon's.

'Are you staying for dinner, Howard?' Amy called out from near the sink, 'There's plenty if you want to give Bernadette a call.'

'Thanks, but we promised Ma and Stuart that we'd eat over at their place tonight. Ma's doing her brisket special, I've called dibs on the leftovers so there'll be brisket subs tomorrow if anyone's interested?' Howard slipped on his jacket and waved goodnight, leaving the four friends to enjoy the lasagne on their own.

After eating, Leonard and Sheldon offered to do the clean-up so Amy and Penny retreated into the sun room at the back of the house, the one the former owners had thought of turning into a home gymnasium. They settled on the floor and within half an hour were buried in wrapping paper and trimmings, soft Christmas music drifting out from Amy's iPod dock sitting on the ledge by the large sliding doors. Penny placed her finger on the next parcel where Amy indicated and watched in wistful amazement as with a few practised moves, Amy had tied a beautiful bow to top of the present; the red ribbon co-ordinating with the thin tartan wrapping paper.

'Penny?' Amy's soft chuckle brought Penny out of her daydream and she pulled her finger away with a smile of her own.

'Sorry, miles away…I was just thinking how you've matched the ribbon to the paper almost perfectly. I tend to just use a load of tape and scribble out a tag…just look at all of these,' Penny waved her hand at the neat pile of presents that Amy had already wrapped, their papers and trimmings all co-ordinating beautifully.

'You can thank my Dad and Aunt Flora for that,' Amy said with a smile, selecting another present for wrapping; a square DVD box set containing the original Wonder Woman series. 'Aunt Flora loved interior design and I would spend some of my summer holidays with her redecorating one of the rooms in her house; every year it would be a different room and once we'd done the whole house it would start all over again. Dad loved Christmas, and as Mother wasn't so much a fan, Dad would sneak presents over to Aunt Flora's and all three of us would spend a whole weekend near Christmas just looking around the shops for the nicest wrapping paper, sometimes taking hours to choose just the right shape of ribbon or deciding whether to add bows or curls…' As she spoke, Amy's fingers folded the edges of the wrapping paper under and she looked up to see Penny's frown. 'Oh, if you fold the edges under before bringing the paper around you get a neater finish, also I just double sided tape on the final edge and use the ribbon to secure it.' Penny watched as Amy slowly demonstrated her technique, but adding a tiny Christmas ornament to the ribbon before tying the double bow. 'Don't use that stiff ribbon that you get in the florists, it's fine if you want the curling effect but for something that looks a little more special get the satin ribbon from the craft store. I've got scads of it, because I tend to go through the recycling sack once the presents have been open and fish it back out!' Penny laughed loudly at Amy's remark and admired the finished gift.

'The wrappings almost a present in itself, isn't it?' Penny said thoughtfully and Amy gave her a slight nod, 'I get why my Gran always seemed a little disappointed once us kids dived into ripping the paper to shreds now, and it kinda explains why you always seem to take a month of Sundays unwrapping your birthday presents now.'

'Exactly,' Amy agreed, 'I appreciate the thought behind the gift as much as the item itself. Now, I seem to recall promising you a quick tutorial on how to make up those pillowcases for Leonard, did I not?'

'Yay!' Penny exclaimed happily, throwing her arms around Amy and pressing a kiss to her cheek. 'Although I was kinda thinking of maybe making a mini version of your quilt? I asked Stuart to look out for some Lord of the Rings merchandise and he said that he'd had a delivery of some of the new characters printed on t-shirts. I'm going to collect them after work tomorrow.'

'Okay, do you know how many shirts?' Amy grabbed a large notepad from one of her craft boxes and flipped it over to reveal a clean page.

'Um, two or three?' Penny said, scrolling through her phone until she reached Stuart's message. 'There's one with ring on the front, one with a lot of writing over it and another made up of lots of smaller pictures.' Penny showed the screen to Amy, who started sketching out a design on the notepad; using the large ring as the central image, with the others in boxes around the outside.

'I thought a nice soft grey for the main fabric, the ring in the centre square and then the others on the four corners…a fat pillow maybe? We can make it like a sham so that it can be taken off to be washed, as the images are coming from t-shirt material it will feel lovely and soft.' Amy looked up and saw Penny's beaming smile. 'I'll show you how it's done on some scraps I had left over from Sheldon's quilt, but you'll be the one making Leonard's pillow so he'll love it even more coming from you.'

'I love it already, make me a list of everything I need to get and I'll call into the mall on my way home tomorrow.' Penny jumped up from the floor, the wide grin still stretched across her face and Amy couldn't help but admire her enthusiasm.

'We'll make a start as soon as you get home, Sheldon can get Leonard to help shift some of our books into the dressers in the living room. We found a couple of gorgeous matching oak bookcases at the back of the other barn and I think Sheldon has pretty much decided to turn one of the downstairs bedrooms into a home office, leaving this one for my craft room.'

'Uh-huh,' Penny waggled her finger at her best friend as they started placing the wrapped presents carefully into a large carton. 'I heard Sheldon's view on that one the other morning, he said that this room would make a great playroom for those kids of yours, I had to hear it from Leonard that you had already planned on when you're going to start trying!' Penny pulled Amy back down to the floor, and clucked her tongue when Amy made noises about re-joining the men in the lounge. 'Stuff it sister, they can occupy themselves with a few comics until I'm satisfied.'

Amy let out a loud sigh and knew that Penny wasn't going to let the matter drop. 'Okay, Sheldon and I have thought about things a lot over these past few weeks, I know I said that I wanted to enjoy being engaged, but things have really been great and I can't wait to get started on planning the wedding.' Penny let out an excited squeal as Amy's voice grew softer and her expression wistful. 'I'd like to be married in our living room; we'd have the ceremony under that lovely archway and there will be lots of candles around the room…I'm thinking a couple of those floor standing wrought iron candle holders with tea lights set up either side of the room…ivory chair backs with velvet ribbons,' Amy paused as Penny let out another squeal and knew that her friend could visualise the scene almost as well as she could. 'I'd fall pregnant on our honeymoon and then next Christmas there would be a fifth stocking hanging on the mantel…one that looks incredibly small next to ours.'

'Aww, Ames…' Penny leant her head against Amy's shoulder and sniffed indelicately, before blinking in confusion. 'Five stockings? You planning on having triplets? I knew twins ran in Shelly's family, but didn't know there were triplets.'

'Don't be silly, Penny.' Amy walked over to one of her carefully packed craft boxes and pulled out a package wrapped in several layers of tissue paper, crooking her finger at her friend to follow her out of the room and back into the living room. Penny's forehead was wrinkled in confusion as she wandered behind Amy, looking on as Amy crossed over to the fireplace, where the orange flames licked cheerfully at a large log in the grate. Amy set her parcel down on the seat of one of the pair of sturdy rockers that Howard had brought up from the barn and started to unwrap the tissue paper.

'As soon as I saw these fire surrounds I knew that many other people had stood before them doing exactly the same thing,' Amy's voice was soft, almost reverent as she lifted something from within the tissue paper and Penny let out a gasp that was almost a sob as she saw Amy carefully lift the ribbon loop over the iron hook already in place. Amy gently smoothed the wrinkles out of the rich red velvet and turned back to the chair, selecting another piece of fabric from within the tissue and repeating her movements until there were four beautifully crafted stockings hanging from the large mantel; each with their names embroidered onto a fabric tag at the top of each one. 'One for each of us,' Amy said as she touched each one lightly with the tip of her finger. 'Penny, Leonard, Sheldon and Amy…' Amy crossed back over to the tissue paper and collected several more items in her hand as she moved along to each one. 'Dad would always hang our stockings early and would slip a little something inside every day.'

'They're gorgeous, sweetie.' Penny crossed over to stand at Amy's side as her friend carefully tucked a single item into the top of each stocking, making sure that just the top of the gif peeked out over the thick, white velvet edging. She placed a cute black kitten wearing a Santa hat into Penny's stocking, a small Lego model from the Star Wars range in Leonard's and a 'Flash' keyring in Sheldon's.

'I can't believe you guys are actually letting the two of us muscle in on your first Christmas together,' Leonard's tone was slightly apologetic as he and Sheldon entered the room quietly and stood admiring the new additions to the fireplace. 'I still kinda feel like we're intruding somehow.'

'Don't be silly, Leonard.' Amy took a step back, and looped her arm through the crook of Leonard's elbow. 'You and Penny are like family to me, and believe me, I'd much rather spent my Christmas with the two of you than listen to my mother list the many reasons that I'm still a disappointment to her…If it was an ideal world, then Howard and Bernadette would be here as well, but I know his mother likes to have him at the house during the holidays and Raj will be spending this year with Emily's parents.' Leonard blinked back tears of his own by the time Amy had finished speaking, and he had to cough lightly to clear his suddenly scratchy throat.

'Um…Aw, heck! Come here…' Leonard tried to be manly and offer a quick thank you, but his softer nature asserted itself and he ended up pulling Amy into a warm hug and pressing a kiss to her cheek. 'Love you, Ames.'

'Love you, too,' Amy whispered back, reaching out her free hand to draw Penny into the hug, and giving Sheldon a meltingly warming smile, that had him grinning back in response.

'Enough of the hippy-dippy, let's go to bed,' Sheldon flapped his hands, uncomfortable with the sight of his fiancée being in another man's embrace for more than the allotted forty seconds of polite contact. Leonard reluctantly loosened his hold on Amy, and wiped his eyes with a tissue before grasping Penny's hand in his own and making their goodnights. Sheldon took care of the fireplace, poking the low burning ashes to spread them evenly among the grate, spritzing the few flames that tried to take hold with a little water from the spray bottle kept on the hearth for just that purpose. By the time, Amy had checked the window locks and slid the bolt across the front door, the embers were completely out and Sheldon was just using the small metal shovel to scoop up the ashes, emptying them into a metal bucket and spraying the top with a little more cool water just to be on the safe side.

'I'll just put these outside and then I'll be up,' Sheldon had declared himself in charge of banking the fire every night, and taking the ashes outside away from the house in the Sheldon declared 'fire safety zone', a good ten feet away from the porch where he spread the ashes out in a thin layer, giving them an extra spritz of water as an extra precaution. He wore heat proof gloves when handling the shovel and bucket and Amy had to bite back a snort of laughter the first time she saw him carry a portable extinguisher on his back the first time he dealt with the ashes. Since banking the fire on a nightly basis for over a week, Sheldon had relaxed a little, he still wore the safety gloves but the fire extinguisher was kept in a little cubby on the back porch with another in each barn with Sheldon keeping a record on his laptop of when he had scheduled in a safety inspection and check of the pressure gauges for each one. This was the house that he and Amy saw themselves living in for a very long time, and he was taking no chances with their safety; without his stringent safety procedures there might never be future little Cooper's chasing the dogs across the lawns or swinging from the tree houses that Mike was planning on building as soon as the weather warmed up a little. Sheldon stirred from his daydreams and checked the ashes for any sign of warmth, satisfied that they were completely cold; he headed back into the house and after checking the locks one more time, loped up the stairs, anxious to get practising on the first of little Coopers with his warm and very receptive fiancée….