Got a new pair of glasses and the adaptation phase is wreaking havoc on my brain -.-
For those who might be wondering about how old the girls are. They are four years and six months younger than Chris.
Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
The present – 5 years and 6,5 months old:
"Honey, I'm home!" Penny shouted into the house, always wanting to do that.
"Hey there." Leonard grinned at her as he appeared from the top of the stairs. "How was your first day of school?"
"You know, pretty strange." she admitted.
"Let me guess, you were hit on." he smiled knowingly.
"Yeah." she nodded. "At least most guys backed off when they saw the ring but two were pretty persistent until I told them that I was married and had three kids. One backed off immediately."
"And the other?" he asked as he came down the stairs.
"He didn't believe me that I had three kids." she shrugged.
"With that body, who would." he winked and came over to kiss her. "Hello."
"Hi." she smiled at him, kissing him again. "How are my girls?"
"Sleeping. And our boy doesn't mind that you don't include him in your question." he grinned.
"Ha ha." she smirked and walked past him to get upstairs.
She went into the girls' bedroom, finding both sleeping soundly in their beds. After their first birthday, she and Leonard had decided to have them sleep in a real bed each, using guardrails at the sides to prevent them from accidentally rolling out, like those beds of old people sometimes had. So far, their decision had turned out well, both girls regularly sleeping through the nights which translated into a good rest for her and her husband as well.
"Where is Chris?" she asked Leonard after exiting her daughters' room.
"He's working in the basement." he told her.
"Working?" she wondered. "I do hope that working in this case doesn't mean playing with your game consoles."
"No, he really is working." Leonard chuckled. "Go check."
She did as he said and opened the basement door, quietly walking down the stairs until she reached the open area not blocked by walls. Just as Leonard had said, Chris stood in front of one of Leonard's whiteboards, writing equations on it that looked even more complex like the ones on Leonard's boards.
"Hey sweetie." she greeted her son. "Busy?"
"Hi mom." her boy smiled at her, melting her heart when she realized that he had the same expression as Leonard did when smiling. "Yeah, trying to find a way to lower the power requirements for the artificial gravity generator I designed."
"Wait, you already designed a generator?" she asked nonplussed.
"Yes, but it's still highly theoretical." Chris replied. "But even then, I calculated that the energy it requires exceeds the generation capacity of the current space station."
"Sweetie, what if you used your father's fusion thingy as basis for power generation?" she suggested.
"Already did." Chris nodded. "If there was a way to build a reactor now, the energy demand wouldn't be a problem. But it would still be a big drain on it."
"By the way, how would you test if your generator works?"
"It would have to be in space, of course." Chris shrugged. "As soon as my design gets a little closer to being built, I'll ask uncle Howard to use his contacts at NASA."
"Why don't you have him ask now?" she wanted to know. "A project like this would surely interest them and they could fund your work."
"Because I don't want the pressure. When you get money from another party, they expect results. I want to do this because I enjoy it and not because I have to."
"Great attitude." she smiled warmly at her boy, while also impressed with his knowledge of the industry. "I'll leave you to your work but don't focus too much on it. You need to have some fun outside of work."
"Mom, this is fun for me." he pointed out.
"I mean, spend time with other people. If you don't, you might end up like your uncle Sheldon."
"You take that back!" Chris called after her as she left, but Penny only grinned, knowing that he didn't take her remark seriously.
"So?" Leonard grinned after her return to the living room.
"Damn, he writes more complicated stuff than you. Except maybe that very first board I saw from you, after I moved into my apartment." she sighed.
"You remember that?"
"Of course." she smiled at him. "I was impressed with Sheldon's board, after asking if you wrote that and then you said 'You like boards, this is my board'." she quoted him. "For me, it was basically Chinese."
"And now?"
"Now it's basically Japanese." she grinned.
"So, how about..." Leonard started but a knock on their door interrupted him, Leonard walking to and opening it, revealing a distraught looking Raj. "Raj, what's going on?"
"Can I come in?"
"Sure." Leonard nodded, making room for him to pass.
"Raj, what's going on?" Penny asked.
"I broke up with Emily." Raj cried tears.
"Why?" Leonard asked shocked. "Why would you do that?"
"Because she told me to get lost and never return." he sobbed.
"Raj, what did you do?" Penny wanted to know.
"What makes you think I did something?" the Indian retorted.
"Because you two were together for almost six years and you never said anything about problems, so she suddenly breaking up with you tells me that you did something." she stated.
"Fine, I forgot our anniversary." Raj admitted. "The last three of them."
"Oh Raj, bad move." Leonard shook his head.
"And her birthday. The last two of them." Raj continued. "And I didn't give her a Christmas gift last year."
"Why not?" Penny palmed her face.
"She said that we shouldn't give gifts that year."
"Raj, when a woman suggests that you shouldn't give gifts, that translates into don't dare to not give me a gift." Leonard chuckled.
"How is a guy supposed to know that?" Raj whined.
"Raj, you were always the most feminine guy of the group." Penny argued. "How can you not know these things?"
"He kinda slobbed off." Leonard told her. "Haven't you noticed that Emily was never with us on holidays like New Year's Eve or others?"
"Hey, I resent the term slobbing off." Raj protested.
"You kinda did." Penny agreed with her husband. "How much time did you spent with her, except for the nights?"
"A few days a week." Raj shrugged.
"See, maybe that wasn't enough." Penny said. "Ever since Leonard and me had resumed our relationship, we've rarely spent a day without ever seeing each other once. Except when you guys were on a trip somewhere or when Leonard was on his research thing in the North Sea, we never were apart for a whole day."
"Since when are women so clingy?" Raj looked at them incredulous.
"Raj, you shouldn't throw stones." Penny scoffed.
"I don't understand."
"You're the one who's pretty clingy." Leonard chuckled. "Just ask Bernadette."
"You're mean." Raj pouted. "I came here for some sympathy, not mockery."
"Well, wrong destination then." Penny grinned before hearing a powerful voice crying from upstairs. "And if you excuse me, one of my daughters needs her mom."
"Can I hold one of them?" Raj asked.
Nodding, she led him upstairs into her girls' room where the second had also begun crying after being woken up by the first. She took Diana into her arms and Raj held Selene, rocking her to calm her down while Leonard went into the kitchen to prepare some food for everybody. Penny came back down, Raj behind her, giggling all the while at Selene while Diana blabbered with gusto, using the baby talk version of conversation.
Penny smiled at her little girls, eating some cake that Leonard had baked and feeding some sugar free pudding to her daughter, Raj doing the same with Selene. She just hoped that their Indian friend wouldn't see this as an invitation to come over every day. If he did, Penny would soon show him that she wasn't as accommodating as Bernadette.
The past – 6 years ago:
Penny woke up and felt her bladder shouting at her for release. She fought herself upright and shuffled into the bathroom, relieving herself and cursing that developing child inside her for already pressing on her inner organs. She washed her face and checked the clock, seeing the time at three in the morning and groaning in response before returning tiredly to bed.
She turned onto her left side and put her arm around her husband. At least that had been her plan but the absence of her sweetie had her arm flop on the bed. She turned onto her back and sat up, looking around the dark room and seeing or hearing nobody move around. Wondering why he wasn't in bed, she got up and put on her fuzzy slippers before exiting their bedroom and walking along the hallway.
She passed the room that would soon be her child's, the walls not yet painted since they didn't yet know the gender of their child. Pausing in the open door, she rubbed her hand over her belly, feeling the curve of the developing baby bump, not yet round like a medicine ball but noticeable, even when she wore some looser clothing.
She turned again and moved further down the hall, seeing light coming out of Leonard's home office. She pushed the door open and saw her husband asleep, his head on the desk while his laptop monitor shone white light onto his face. She noticed the two keyboards, the regular one on the laptop itself and the special one that had all those equation symbols on it and a look at the screen baffled her when she saw all the complicated equations Leonard was writing. To prevent any of his work getting lost, she took the mouse and saved his work before turning to him.
"Sweetie." she gently shook him awake.
"Huh?" he lifted his head, a little snort exiting his nose, and looked around confused. "What's going on?"
"You fell asleep." she smiled.
"Ugh." he groaned, rubbing his face and trying to shake out his stiff neck.
"Why are you working so hard?" she asked him, rubbing his neck to get the kinks out his sleeping position had caused.
"I want to get this paper done." he told her. "I want to begin working on technical solutions but I need the paper done to get funding."
"Shouldn't that be a given since you'll already get a Nobel Price for it soon?"
"You would think but without the possibility of making it a reality, all the Nobels in the world wouldn't give me research grants." he told her.
"Does Sheldon still try to prevent you from doing your work?"
"Why do you think am I working on an air-gapped computer." he chuckled sadly.
"A what?"
"Air-gapped." repeated. "Meaning, this machine has never been connected to the internet."
"But what if you need information from there?" she wondered.
"Oh, I have this one for that." he pointed to the second laptop, activating the screen by pressing a random key."
"You know, I'm torn between feeling rage at Sheldon so blatantly trying to sabotage you work and glee for him being so envious that he would stoop so low." she giggled.
"Yeah." he laughed with her and put his right hand on her stomach. "How is my kid?"
"Already pressing on my bladder sometimes." she huffed as he lovingly kissed her belly.
"And the hormones?" he grinned.
"Still in overdrive." she hummed and hugged his head, pressing it against her belly. "Come to bed. It's lonely in there."
"Still not gotten used to living in a house?" he chuckled.
"Well, when waking up at night without husband at your side, it tends to get a bit eerie." she pouted.
"Don't worry, I don't plan to be gone anytime soon." he smiled and followed her into their bedroom, joining her in bed after he had washed up.
The present – 5 years and 7 months old:
"Da da dada da dada da da." Diana almost shouted while Selene only laughed at whatever her sister was saying.
"Man, our first daughter is really talkative." Leonard chuckled, pushing Diana sitting in her stroller along, Penny next to him with the other stroller that held Selene.
"Was I the same?" Chris asked, walking between them.
"No, you hadn't anyone your age to talk to." Penny shook her head. "Also, you were too busy taking in your environment. Plus, when you were that age, you were already speaking more words."
They kept walking slowly, enjoying the fresh air this afternoon. It was still warm but at least not unbearably hot anymore, letting both of them wear loose clothing instead of the shortest clothing she had for her and long clothes for Leonard to protect his sensitive skin. They still kept umbrellas over their daughters to protect them from the rays.
"Honey, did you finally acclimatize to school life?" Leonard asked his wife, grinning.
"You're not going to let it go, do you?" she moped.
During the last two weeks, after Penny had gone back to college, she had, except on that first day, overslept every day, basically skipping two thirds of the first lecture of each day. She had used the same excuse every day, her daughters keeping her from coming earlier but she was sure that her professors would soon not believe her anymore, especially since she was known to be Leonard's wife.
While she had desired not to have that fact known for fear of being ostracized by other students, that plan had flown out of the windows practically on day one, when the professors of each lecture had done the roll call, always asking her if she had any relations to their famous colleague, which she proudly confirmed, unable not to.
Luckily, her classmates were rather more upbeat about it, except for a few males who had difficulties believing that she was already married with three children, much less to one of their own professors. While she was somewhat sick of these guys and their assertions, she was on the other hand proud of the fact that she had gotten back into shape enough to be mistaken for a woman in her twenties.
"Hey, you wanted to go back to school, so you should be there for all courses." he winked. "Otherwise, what role model will you be for our son?"
"Hey, he complains every morning." she pointed out.
"Because I'm tired." Chris added. "Whoever thought that starting school at eight-thirty should be punished with eating broccoli every day."
"Chris, I read that in Germany, school starts at seven-thirty."
"Ugh, when do these kids have to get up? At six?" Chris groaned.
"By the way, did you make progress on your power requirement problem?" Leonard asked his son.
"No, unfortunately not." Chris sighed. "Turns out, creating artificial gravity is more difficult than I thought.
"You don't say." Leonard laughed heartily.
"Penny!" a female voice shouted at them from behind.
"Cheryl!" Penny said surprised upon seeing her high school friend.
"Oh my god, are those the twins?" Cheryl squealed at the two girls in the strollers.
"Yeah." Penny smiled. "The one in Leonard's stroller is Diana, this one here is Selene." she pointed at her own.
"They are so cute." Cheryl gushed, caressing Diana's cheek.
"Da da da da da da." Diana giggled and held out her arms.
"Can I?" Cheryl asked.
"Go ahead." Leonard nodded and Cheryl took the little girl into her arms, rocking her and blowing raspberries.
Leonard took Selene, so his other daughter wouldn't feel left out while her sister was being rocked and entertained. Unlike Diana, Selene was quieter, rarely babbling away but when she said something, it was usually something that people understood, even if it was only things like mommy, daddy or similar easy words.
"Cheryl, you look kinda happy and sad at the same time." Penny finally realized.
"Yeah, I finally broke up with my boyfriend." Cheryl sighed, putting Diana back into her stroller.
"The one who mooched off you?" Penny raised one eyebrow.
"The very same."
"Why? I thought he was so good in bed that you could overlook the mooching." Penny grinned.
"That ended when he called me three days ago, saying he needed twenty thousand dollars." Cheryl shrugged. "Nobody is that good."
"What the hell did he need so much money for?" Leonard butted in.
"Bail." Cheryl gave them a one word answer.
"Was he caught speeding faster than a bullet?" Leonard smirked.
"No, he was caught with drugs." Cheryl said. "When I heard that, I told him to go to hell."
"That sucks after you bought him all that equipment."
"Ha, I saved every receipt." Cheryl chuckled. "They all have my credit card number on them, so legally, I own that stuff. And I will sell that stuff too. You know anyone who needs a few electric guitars and amplifiers?"
"No, I don't." Penny giggled.
"You know any decent guys?" Cheryl asked. "I'm thinking of doing what you did and land me a nerd. At least they usually have steady jobs."
"Hey, there are nerds who are slobs." Leonard pointed out. "Also, choosing a boyfriend based on that criteria isn't really romantic, don't you think?"
"True but I'm at the point in my life where I'm willing to overlook certain things." Cheryl shrugged. "I want kids too and I'm not getting younger."
"Huh." Penny thought of something. "Hey Cheryl, remember Raj?"
"Uh, doesn't ring a bell right now."
"You met him in the hospital when I had my Braxton Hicks contractions, remember?" Penny said. "He was also the Indian guy you slept with after my Halloween party all those years ago. He was dressed as Thor."
"Oh right, the great listener." Cheryl remembered.
"Yeah, he can talk to women now without booze." Penny giggled.
"I'm sorry?" Cheryl looked at her.
"He had selective mutism. He was unable to talk to women without alcohol." Leonard explained.
"And now he can?"
"Yeah." Penny nodded. "And like you, he's single again."
"I don't want to be a rebound."
"I don't think he would want to be either." Leonard pointed out. "But if it makes you feel better, Raj has the tendency of falling head over heels for any woman he gets together with."
"Huh, okay." Cheryl shrugged. "Can you give him my number? If he agrees, he can call me next month."
"Why only next month?" Penny wanted to know.
"After I'm done liquidating my ex's possessions, I'm going to visit my parents for a few weeks."
"I hope you don't get in trouble for doing it." Penny cautioned her.
"Don't worry, I asked my neighbor about it, he's a lawyer and he said it's okay since they are legally mine."
"Alright then." Penny said. "We'll tell Raj and give him your number."
"Thanks." Cheryl smiled and produced a full-body picture of herself. "Give him this too, as an enticement."
"Fine." Penny laughed. "Bye Cheryl."
"Bye guys." Cheryl returned and knelt down before the strollers. "Bye you two." she said to the girls in baby talk before walking off.
Grinning at the prospect of putting another couple together, Penny continued pushing Selene's stroller, with an added spring in her step.
For anyone wondering about Cheryl and Penny being on good terms, remember, my two stories don't have the same background ;)
Review please :)