Ooohh, seems like I really split you guys with that chapter! I knew that would happen, but I'm glad that the majority of you seemed to like the way I had it happen. Hopefully this chapter will put the rest of you all at ease, and if not im sure you will let me know anyway! :P Happy Premiere Day guys! I will be sitting up late tonight to watch all the fun unfold and I cannot wait! Leonards coming home! Yay!
Time To Jump
Looking up from her phone as she sat behind the bar of The Cheesecake Factory on one of the quietest Sunday nights she had ever experienced, Penny spotted a small group of guys approach the bar. Each one of them were smartly dressed - probably ready for a night out on the town - and looking like they had spent more time doing their hair than she had spent getting ready for work that day, which was no easy feat. Sighing, she stood up, placing her phone into her apron as she approached the guys, urging herself to put on her best smile.
"Hey guys, what can I get you?" She asked as pleasantly as she could, memorizing their drink orders as they were told to her and responding to any of their attempts at picking her up with a simple smile and dismissive comment. She wasn't in the best of moods as it was, making her almost completely unwilling to even play along with their shameless advances, even though she knew it would probably bag her a healthy tip if she did.
As if on autopilot, Penny turned to the wall of alcohol behind her and began effortlessly making up their drinks, realizing as she did it just how easy tending the bar had become to her. She could still remember the days when she would have to practice mixing drinks at home because she just couldn't seem to get them right, and now she was pretty sure she could do it blindfolded. Everything was almost second nature, and it only served to convince her once again that she had been working here too long and had to get out. Working for over six years in The Cheesecake Factory was nothing short of a depressing thought, especially considering her initial plan had her there for no more than six months.
Within minutes the order of drinks was complete, and her fake smile was back as she took their money and handed them their change, suffering through their cheesy pick-up lines one last time as they walked away, before rolling her eyes with a fed up sigh and heading back to her stool.
As she turned on her heel, one hand already making its way back into her apron to retrieve her phone, Penny spotted a petite blonde with a wide grin, excitedly waving at her from the other end of the bar.
"Bernie!" She exclaimed, her face lighting up as soon as she registered who it was, her hand coming away from her apron and out in front of her as she walked towards her, pulling her into a short hug across the bar. "What are you doing here?" She asked before furrowing her brow slightly, "Is Amy not here with you?"
"I thought I'd drop by for a visit," Bernadette began as she sat down in one of the bar stools, "Howie's over at Raj's playing one of those silly games so I thought I'd come by and keep you company since I knew you were working the bar tonight. I tried to get Amy to come too but Sheldon has her taking him to some train convention in LA. So it's just us!"
"Oh, great!" Penny grinned as she pulled her own stool closer to the bar and sat down. "It's a shame Amy couldn't come though…" Her smile dropped slightly, "I've missed you guys this week."
And she had. It had been little over a week since she had had the girls over at her place for a girls night, but it felt like much more. So much had gone on with her over that time, spending much of her free time after her talk with Leonard, contemplating that exact conversation. She thought it over and over, replaying his words and reactions in her head, criticizing the parts she felt she could have said better, and should have said better. She had also spent time searching online, looking at different courses, scouting for a better agent, waiting for something to grab her attention, leaving very little time between that and working for her to catch up with her girls, even though she desperately needed it.
She would be the first to admit that she hadn't been herself all week. She hadn't been upset though, or sad, or angry, she had simply spent much more time in her head, becoming a little closed off to the rest of the world. The only thing she actually found herself putting some serious effort into was preparing for her call-back that she had attended on Friday. She was certain that preparing her monologue for that second audition had been the only thing stopping her from completely losing herself in her thoughts, it being the only thing she had around her that would pull her from her own reality and allow her to become someone else, even if it was only for a short time. That was one thing she truly adored about acting, the process of becoming someone else, immersing yourself in another character, leaving herself, and all the complications that came with being her, behind.
She had almost isolated herself in that short time, the only person she had really spoken to had been Sheldon and her work colleagues. She had spoken to Leonard too, but it was different. When they spoke it wasn't as carefree and relaxed as it had been, as much as they tried to pretend it was. There was a huge elephant in the room now, one that she had put there. Both of them felt it, but neither of them addressed it. Her reason being that she simply couldn't face it again, the heartache from leaving herself vulnerable and not having him physically there to help her through it wasn't something she was going to put herself through again, so she avoided the topic completely. She guessed his reasoning might have been deeper than that, more than likely, he was afraid to broach the subject through fear of making her feel like he was pushing her and possibly pushing her too far, a fear that she had put there too.
Penny found it odd, because she thought that feeling of relief she had felt in the beginning and for some time after their talk, would have lasted. She had thought that figuring out what had been holding her back would have lifted a weight from her shoulders, and it did, but it was instantly replaced with a weight harder to carry. Now she had to do something about what she had learned. It was all on her to work out what it was she wanted to do with the rest of her life, for her sake, and for Leonard's.
But something else had nagged at her ever since their talk and it had taken her a few days to realize it was because she felt like it was unfinished. Although she had felt that what she had told him, and her words reiterating her love for him, were good enough at the time, as soon as a few hours passed and everything began to sink in, she found herself wondering if she should have done more to convince him that she was serious about him. That the words she had spoken just weren't enough to show how deeply she cared for him, but she wasn't even sure what more she could have done, besides proposing to him then and there – something she just knew she couldn't do yet.
"Do you want something to drink?" Penny asked, standing from her stool and shaking her head from her thoughts.
"Sure, red wine please." Bernadette chirpily replied.
Nodding, Penny grabbed a glass and filled it with some wine before placing it down in front of her friend.
"So," Bernadette asked after her first sip, "What's been going on with you? I haven't heard much from you lately! Even your Snapchats have started to die down!" She joked. "I haven't been getting at least one every couple of hours anymore!"
Laughing softly, Penny grabbed a tall glass and began to pour herself a diet coke, "Yeah, the novelty of that wears off pretty quick."
"True," She nodded, "But I bet the novelty hasn't worn off with Leonard." She joked, her eyebrow slightly raised.
Penny gave only a short, soft laugh and a nod in return as she put a straw in her glass and sat down on her stool, beginning to stir her drink, her smile slowly fading.
In that second Bernadette knew something was on her mind, simply by the way she was looking down at that glass, and the absence of some witty retort, that she would usually have given. "So… What's new?" Bernadette asked as casually as possible.
Penny shrugged, "Nothing much really." She looked up, "I went to that call-back and that seemed to go pretty well."
"That's good." Bernadette smiled and nodded as she took another sip of wine. "Anything else?"
Giving another casual shrug, Penny shook her head, "Not really."
Tilting her head, Bernadette gave her a knowing look, "Penny." She chastised, causing Penny to drop away from her gaze and shake her head slowly again. "What's going on?" She asked, "Did something happen with Leonard?" She said a few moments later, going with the odds that anything upsetting her or playing on her mind would have to do with her absent boyfriend.
Blinking slowly as she looked down at the glass of coke in her hands, stirring the ice inside it with her straw, Penny felt a sudden swell of emotion build within her, her gut churning as her throat tightened. She was left with only two options. Bernadette knew something was bothering her, and she could either talk about it, or cover it up and pretend she was fine. While almost every bone in her body told her to keep everything to herself, Penny knew she had to talk. She needed to get these thoughts out of her head before they ate her up inside, hopefully relieving some of the weight that was still on her shoulders, plus there was little chance Bernadette would drop the subject now that it had been brought up.
Taking a breath, Penny looked to the ceiling in an attempt to keep her tears at bay before looking back at her friend and nodding.
"Oh my God, what happened?" Bernadette asked, becoming a little anxious at her friends sudden emotion.
"Nothing bad Bernie," Penny replied, a crack in her voice, as she looked back down at her friend.
"Well it obviously isn't good."
"No, it's just…" She gave a shaky sigh, "it's kind of… complicated."
Bernadette took a quick scan of the almost empty restaurant, before looking back at Penny, "Well, it's only just past seven and this place is pretty dead. We have plenty of time to talk, so get talking."
"Wow," Bernadette said, her eyes wide. "That sounds pretty intense."
"Yeah, it was." Penny said with a nod and a sigh as she stood up and refilled her coke, before doing the same with Bernadette's now empty glass of wine. It hadn't taken her long to catch Bernadette up with everything that had happened that day in her home. Filling her in on everything she felt she had figured out, telling her about how she had told Leonard everything as soon as she could.
"How did he take it? Was he upset?"
"No." Penny replied, sitting back down in her stool, "I mean, he got a little annoyed with me at one point and made me open up a bit more but overall he was pretty great about it all."
Bernadette frowned, wondering why she was saying those words with such a downbeat tone. "So, what's the problem then? If he accepts that you need to do this before you settle down, then why aren't you happy about it?"
"I don't know." She shook her head. "I am happy. I'm happy he understands where I'm coming from and that he's willing to let me do this but…" She took in a deep breath. "I dunno, it's… it's not right." She said, her voice cracking once more. "He shouldn't have to wait. He's waited on me for so long and it's not fair that I'm making him do it… You know what it's like? It's like three years ago all over again. This is the same feeling I had back then, before-" Penny looked down, trying to hide the tears that were beginning to show. "Before I broke up with him. I feel like I'm stringing him along again but I just can't give him what he wants… Not yet."
Bernadette's eyes widened with shock, "Wait a minute, you don't want to break up with him again do you?"
"No!" Penny quickly replied. "That's the last thing I want."
"Oh," She relaxed, "okay, good. Well, then, why can't you give him what he wants?" She asked and Penny simply glared through her tears. "No," She continued with a dismissive wave, "I know all that stuff about you wanting to work on your career too, but… I mean… did you give him any sort of reassurance that you two were actually going somewhere?"
"Yeah." She replied with nod and a sigh, reaching over to the napkins under the bar and dabbing her eyes dry, "I told him that I loved him, and that I wanted to marry him one day, but that I just had to do this first, and honestly I thought that was enough at the time…" Scrunching up her napkin, she dropped her hand to her lap. "And it felt like it was, even though he still seemed a little disappointed about it. I told myself that me telling him that would be enough…" She trailed off, staring down at her glass again.
"But it's not?"
Shaking her head, Penny looked up to the ceiling again, softly hitting her clenched fist off her thigh as those tears began to bubble up again, "No." She replied with a squeal.
"Did he say that?"
Penny shook her head and sighed, "No," She dabbed her eyes again, "but he doesn't have to. I can feel it myself, I know it's not. He needs more from me and I don't even know if he realizes it or if he just isn't telling me that." She took in a deep breath, "Ever since I told him, things have been different... Like, they haven't been bad, it's not been awkward or anything. We still talk to each other and we still laugh and stuff its just..." She shrugged one shoulder, "different. It's like there's this big cloud hanging over us and we are both just waiting on it to either burst or clear away."
Bernadette nodded, taking a sip of her wine both to take in everything she had said and to give Penny some time to compose herself. "Have you two spoken about it since?"
"No." Penny replied softly, "I don't wanna bring it up and I don't think he does either." She shook her head. "I wouldn't even know what to say, I don't even really know what's bothering me so much. I just have this feeling in my gut that tells me I should have done more. I should have given him something but I don't know what I could have said to make things better."
"Have you ever thought that maybe you should have shown him how serious you were about wanting to be with him?"
Penny frowned instantly, "What do you mean?"
"You know, like… instead of just telling him that you love him and want to be with him, you should have given him something concrete that showed him you're in it for the long haul." She shrugged, "Words are just words Penny."
"But… what could I have done? I already told you I can't do the marriage thing yet. Not just because I want to sort my career out first but because I just don't think we are ready for it right now. You;ve seen how we are, we still have those silly fights." She shook her head, looking back down at her glass. "We're both still kinda new at this… this is the first real relationship I've had, one that isn't just all about sex." She looked up and over at the group of men she had served earlier, sitting in one of the booths loudly talking and laughing, "Like it was when I used to date those sorts of guys." She turned back to Bernadette, "I really care about him, and I can't mess up what we have by jumping into marriage… but… what else can I actually do to show him how serious I am?" Shaking her head slowly, Penny looked back down, "I have no idea."
"You don't?" Bernadette asked with a frown, since to her it seemed pretty obvious what she could do, what she had practically already done, without thinking twice about it.
Shaking her head again, Penny looked up and sighed. "No. And the thing is, if I don't do something, I feel like it will be… I dunno… weird, when he comes back."
"Why?"
"Well, we can hardly go back to being how we were can we? So much has changed that it would be weird if he came home and we just acted like everything is back how it was before he left."
"But, why? What's changed that's really going to make a difference?" Bernadette asked, although she was pretty sure she knew the answer to that question, even if Penny wasn't clear of it yet.
"I dunno. Everything, and nothing." Glancing up at Bernadette and seeing the confused look on her face, she sighed. "Like… with him being away I've just realized just how much I need him. I still miss him. And I really thought before he left that by the time he was almost home I would have stopped missing him so much, but I haven't."
"So, you're feelings have changed?"
"No, they haven't changed they've just gotten stronger. I loved him before he left but right now it's more than that. It's more intense. He's like… my whole life." She looked down and shook her head, "That's why I kind of need something else… it freaks me out that he has taken up so much of my life. He has so much power over me and I don't think he even realizes it. And that's so scary to me because what if the worst happened? What if we broke up, for good this time." She shrugged, her throat tightening again. "I'd be left with nothing but The Cheesecake Factory."
"You would have us."
Penny gave a small smile. "I know that sweetie, but you understand what I mean." She motioned to Bernadette with her hand that still clutched her tear stained napkin, "If you and Howard broke up, you would have your work to focus on to keep you going. I don't have anything like that right now." She shook her head, "Anyway, the thing with feeling like that is that now I feel like we can't just go back to how we were."
"I understand that. You feel like what you have is deeper now, so getting back into the same routine you had before he left would almost feel regressive, right?" Bernadette said and Penny nodded, "So, what part don't you think you can do again? What do you want to change?"
Penny frowned and stared off thoughtfully. "Um… I dunno. I…" Chewing on her bottom lip, she looked down and stared at her glass as she thought over everything that would happen when Leonard got back and only one thing came to mind that she really wanted to change.
When he came home, she realized she didn't want him leaving her apartment to go back to his own. It had been pretty much established that when he returned, his first few nights would be spent at her apartment, but she wanted more than that. She didn't want him to leave and go across the hall after those few nights, she wanted him to stay there with her, for as long as possible. As that thought really hit her, she glanced up at Bernadette, a slightly scared look in her eye.
Bernadette smiled, feeling pretty certain that Penny had finally come to the conclusion that she had reached a while ago. "Figured it out?"
Penny just continued to stare, her jaw slackened as she tried to speak. "I…" She shook her head. "But we tried living together before, it didn't work."
"And why not?"
"Because… because it was…" She trailed off in thought.
"Too sudden? Pretty much forced on you?"
Penny nodded. "Yeah."
"But this time it won't be forced on you. It's you that's decided you don't want him going back to his own apartment. It's you that's pretty much moved his stuff in already."
Penny opened her mouth once again to speak, but quickly closed it again, unsure of what she even wanted to say. She could hardly protest that point, as much as she wanted to, almost all of the stuff that Leonard hadn't taken with him had built up slowly in her apartment.
"Tell me something..." Bernadette began, moving in closer, putting both of her arms on the bar, her fingers lightly holding the glass of wine in front of her.
"Yeah?" Penny cautiously replied.
"How did you feel that time he moved in? After everything blew up and he went back to his own apartment after staying at yours for those few days?"
Penny shrugged a little, "Um… I dunno. Well, angry at first," She said with a nod, "Because of how all of that had happened…" She thought for a few moments. "Then… relieved, I guess, because all of the pressure was off again. We were back to the way we were."
"So you never missed having him around?"
"Mmh, I never really thought about it…" She looked down. "I guess I kind of did." She said quietly. "I missed waking up with him." She smiled. "That was always nice. Going to sleep with him was nice too…" She looked up at Bernadette with a small grin. "And there was this one night that I was working the dinner shift and didn't get home until like ten." Her grin widened as she reminisced, "When I got back he had a pizza in the oven for me, since that's all he can really cook," She laughed, "And a glass of wine sitting out for me. Then after we ate we just sat on the sofa for a while just… talking and stuff. He massaged my feet because they were sore and then we cuddled for a while and went to bed." She looked down at her glass as a tint of red hit her cheeks, "We didn't even have sex that night… that was the only night of the days he stayed over that we didn't, but it was my favourite night with him because it was just so nice having him there when I got back. I didn't think about how he had moved in and how much that freaked me out," She shrugged, "I was too tired to care, I just loved having him there taking care of me, helping me relax after my crazy shift."
Bernadette looked on, smiling as her friend continued to grin into her glass, glad for her sake, and for Leonard's, that everything seemed to be falling into place. "So he only problem you really had with him moving in was that it happened without any forethought. He pretty much forced it on you and that freaked you out. That's completely understandable Penny, but this time you've thought about it. I can tell you want it. I think it's time you made that jump Penny. You have to at some point."
Penny nodded, still not looking away from her glass. Bernadette was right. She did want it, she just hadn't really realized it until now. The thought of him coming home had always seemed so far away that she just never thought too much about what would happen with them when he did return. And now, with only a month to go before he was back, it really hit her just how much she didn't want him going back to his own apartment. She didn't want to have to take all the things she had 'borrowed' from his place and put them back. She didn't want to have to take his clothes out of her drawers and closet, or take his comics out from under her coffee table. They were fine where they were.
As a small smile spread over her face again, she looked back up at Bernadette and nodded. "I think you're right. I think I want to live with him."
