Hi, guys! This will be the last chapter. I know this story is maybe shorter than you've expected, but it still took long enough for me to write something that was really good enough in my overcritical mind, haha.
On one side, I didn't want you to wait any longer until I was ready to post, but on the other side, this sequel was also always intended to be just a glimpse into this AU Shamy's life after they moved from Texas to California and how they met the rest of the gang. And I hope I managed to show exactly that. :)
Enjoy this final chapter and just leave everything else to your own imagination... ;)
Chapter 6:
Sheldon and Amy have decided for a wedding date.
It has been almost a year now since the couple had moved into the apartment below Leonard's and to them that was enough waiting and adjusting to life in Pasadena. They were ready to tie the knot.
Leonard was very happy for them. He didn't know two people that were as suited for each other as they were.
Amy had hoped that she would find a female friend she'd like enough to make her a bridesmaid, but it looked like Sheldon's twin sister and mother would have to do this job.
"It's fine." she had said bravely but with a heavy, deep-rooted sadness in her green eyes. "I love them. They're like family to me."
But Leonard knew that this was what made it so sad. Amy hasn't got any girlfriends except family. And not even her own family. That was also why the wedding would take place in Texas after all. Just a small ceremony. That was all they wanted anyway.
Leonard and the guys were cordially invited, but Leonard wasn't sure if he should attend. Weddings usually required showing up with a date, if one didn't want to look like a total loser, and a date was something that wasn't even remotely in sight for him right now. Not since Joyce Kim abruptly left him when the explosion in his building got him into trouble with the law. Leonard was later told by his boss at CalTech that Kim was a North Korean spy who was only interested in his work anyway, but Leonard chose not to believe him. That would be even more embarrassing.
Since he refused to do as Howard has planned and hire a... 'lady friend' for the day, it seemed that Leonard would be stuck with Raj who hasn't got a date, either. Which, by the way, didn't put a damper on his enthusiasm to participate in the Cooper/Fowler wedding at all. Raj's boundless level of excitement over the nuptials would easily qualify him to pose as Amy's maid of honor. Amy probably wouldn't even mind, Leonard figured.
So he settled for Raj as his wingman and tried to find comfort in the fact that Sheldon's twin sister was currently single, too and between him and the silent Raj, he'd be the superior option... right?
There was still a lot to do before the big day and Leonard hardly ever saw his two friends without a wedding magazine under their arms and a stressed frown upon their faces. Apparently, Sheldon's religious mother insisted on a big, traditional church wedding but that wasn't really how Sheldon and Amy had envisioned the ceremony. Most evening gatherings between the five friends were interrupted or cut short by a call from the Lone Star State and he could hear how another heated wedding-related discussion began.
Leonard slowly but surely believed that, if he ever got married one day, he would prefer running off to Las Vegas instead of dealing with all those stressful decisions.
At one point a frantic, teary-eyed Amy hammered on Leonard's door, saying that Sheldon was downstairs arguing with his mother on the phone again and that this disagreement over the location kept holding up every other aspect of the wedding that they still had to plan. So she needed to hear his opinion on colors, centerpieces and music.
Now, preferably!
It was Amy's frightening desperation that made Leonard agree to help out by enlisting eager, wedding-crazy Raj. That was how he found himself in that unfortunate position of functioning as Raj's mouthpiece for an insane amount of topics that he had absolutely no clue about.
Howard found all of this very amusing.
On this day, Leonard and the future spouses just came back from shopping for the right kind of table napkins and they kept discussing as they trudged up the stairs to their respective apartments.
"I'm sorry, Amy. Raj told me to tell you which color of napkins to buy so they would fit to the flowers he picked out, but who could possibly know that there are so many different shades of pink?" lamented Leonard.
"I knew." Sheldon pointed out.
"Well, they all look just pink to me. Sorry, I'm horrible at this job."
"You are." quipped Sheldon.
"Would you stop being such a smart-ass. You were no help at all today." Leonard huffed.
"It's okay, Leonard." Amy assured him with a smile. Ever since Raj and – reluctantly – also Leonard supported her with the wedding planning she was her calm, rational self again. It seemed like the guys transformed more into bridezillas than the actual bride. "I like the color we chose. It will look perfect."
"Raj will have an aneurysm if they don't match." Leonard reminded her.
"Hey, maybe that's what will make him snap out of his selective mutism." Sheldon joked, grinning at Amy who gazed back at him disapprovingly but was not quite able to hide her amusement.
"What is it with you today?" wondered Leonard. "I thought if anyone then it would be you who would want everything to look absolutely perfect. But you don't seem to care at all about your wedding."
"Oh, quite the opposite, Leonard." his friend said. "I can't think about anything but the wedding. But I couldn't care less about the color of the napkins or the flowers. All that matters to me is that I have Amy by my side when we say 'I do' and that she will be there from then on 'til forever."
Amy blushed a definitely darker shade than the darn napkins and intertwined her fingers with Sheldon's, squeezing and beaming at him. "Oh, Sheldon…" she sighed and Leonard quickly had to turn away before he heard the couple exchange a kiss.
"Ugh, could you please stop doing that while I'm in your vicinity." Leonard groaned grumpily. Another downside to his job as assistant to the Indian wedding planner was that his constant closeness to the happy couple made him aware of his own loneliness with increasing intensity.
"We're sorry, Leonard." Amy said, giggling faintly. "You have my word, one day you'll be just as happy as we are. I just know it."
"Don't hold your breath." Leonard muttered dejectedly.
"You're upset." noted Sheldon. "As your friend I'm obligated to cheer you up."
"Please don't."
"Do you want to hear an interesting fact about stairs?"
"Not really."
"If the height of a single step is off by as little as two millimeters, most people will trip." Sheldon continued unperturbed.
"I don't care." Leonard grumbled. They took the last flight of stairs before arriving on the fourth floor. "Two millimeters? That doesn't seem right." he added, intrigued after all.
"It's true." said Sheldon. "I did a series of experiments when I was twelve. Do you remember, Amy?"
"Oh, yes. I remember your father was really mad at you." she said.
Leonard, however, had stopped listening. His friends bumped into him as he stopped abruptly on the fourth floor landing, his eyes directed towards the open door of apartment 4B – the one opposite Sheldon and Amy's – from where cheerful music could be heard.
The most beautiful, blonde girl Leonard has ever seen, stood in-midst of various moving boxes, flipping through some CD's while bopping her head along to the music.
"New neighbor?" Amy noticed, making Leonard flinch a little because he had forgotten, for a brief second, that his friends were still there.
"Evidently." answered Sheldon.
"S-Significant improvement over the old neighbor." Leonard noted boldly, but his thin voice gave away his nervousness.
Sheldon gave him a look. "A two hundred pound transvestite with a skin condition, yes, she is."
Amy elbowed him. "Sheldon."
By now the new neighbor had noticed the awkward group of three standing in the hallway. "Oh, hi!" she said cheerfully.
"Hi!" exclaimed Leonard way too quickly.
"Hi." Sheldon and Amy both echoed.
"Hi." repeated Leonard for no apparent reason whatsoever.
The blonde girl eyed him questioningly "Hi?" she asked again.
"W-We don't mean to interrupt." Leonard explained quickly. "We live in the building, too."
"Oh, that's nice. All three of you?" asked the new neighbor.
"No, uhm, his apartment is upstairs." Amy chimed in, pointing at Leonard before he could answer for himself. "We live across from you." Here she showed the most enthusiastic smile Leonard has ever seen on her face. Even wider than when Sheldon was sweet-talking her before.
Do I look as creepy and obviously smitten as Amy does right now, Leonard wondered silently.
"Oh, okay." the blonde girl said. She didn't seem as put off by her grin as Leonard. "Well, I guess I'm your new neighbor. Penny." she introduced herself.
"Leonard, Sheldon and I'm Amy." said Amy, indicating both guys briefly before smiling at Penny again.
"Hi." said Penny.
"Hi." all three of them echoed once more. Now Penny was lifting a bemused eyebrow.
"Well, uh… welcome to the building." Leonard eventually said after some stuttering. At least he was quicker than Amy this time.
"Thank you." Penny beamed. "Maybe we can have coffee some time."
Leonard's heart skipped a beat. She was looking at him when she'd said that. Only at him! She had the most beautiful blue eyes. "Oh, great." he wheezed enamored.
"Great." exclaimed Amy happily, causing the beautiful eyes to wander.
"Great." said Sheldon, too. But from him it sounded obviously sarcastic.
"Great." repeated Penny.
Awkward silence stretched. Leonard wrecked his brain for something else to say. Just anything to keep the conversation going. His hands trembled nervously and his heart pounded in his ears. It felt exactly like high school when he was in proximity of just any pretty girl. But in contrary to the past, this prom queen beauty was actually nice and she was talking to him. He couldn't let that chance go to waste.
"Well, bye then." announced Sheldon, pulling at Amy's hand. She looked almost as angry about this ruined moment as Leonard felt.
"Bye." Penny smiled.
"Bye." said Leonard and Amy, begrudgingly and the door to 4B fell shut. They both turned their annoyed gazes at Sheldon.
"Why did you have to do that? We were talking." complained Leonard.
"Yes, and very eloquently I must say." Sheldon replied snidely.
"Sheldon, this could've been the perfect opportunity to widen our circle." Amy reminded him.
"Widen our circle?" he repeated incredulously. "Come on, we already have three friends. What more do you need?"
"A female friend, obviously!" exclaimed Amy. "Sheldon, she is perfect. Nice and beautiful. She reminds me of Missy."
Sheldon curled his lip, unimpressed. "Wow. I expected Leonard to be immediately smitten with her, not you."
"Huh?" uttered Leonard when his name was mentioned. He'd tuned out the squabbling couple and instead stared at the door to his potential happiness… or maybe his downfall. He couldn't decide yet. In his mind he tried to piece together a sentence that would make the blonde girl, Penny, fall immediately in love with him, but so far he didn't come up with anything except an idea how he'd get her to open her door again.
Well, that's more than I usually have, he thought, encouraging himself. "We should invite her for lunch." Leonard decided aloud.
"What? Why?" asked Sheldon.
"That's a brilliant idea!" beamed Amy. "It shows that we are good neighbors. If we make her feel welcome then maybe she'll like to come over more often in the future."
"We never invited Louis/Louise over." reminded Sheldon.
"Well, then that was wrong of us." said Amy.
"Amy's right." added Leonard and moved towards the new neighbor's door again before his nerves would get the best of him. "We need to widen our circle. I'm going to invite her to lunch."
He knocked.
Sheldon shook his head. "You two are unbelievable."
The door opened and the radiant beauty of Penny emerged once more.
"Hi, again." said Leonard, but before the echo of greetings could start anew – he already sensed Amy breathing in – he quickly continued. "So, uhm… we just came home from…" He embarrassingly remembered their discussion about all kinds of pink napkins. "Uh, a… an event planning thing and we thought we could do with a break and these guys kindly invited me over and, uh… I know that moving can be stressful, too and I find that when I'm undergoing stress, good food and company can have a comforting effect."
He paused. Not only Amy and Sheldon, but also Penny looked at him a little confused. Leonard could feel himself shiver as nervousness overwhelmed him like a giant wave. His mouth, however, wasn't done mumbling yet. "Also, we, uh, just decided to have Indian food and… I don't have to tell you that, uh, a clean colon is just… one less thing to worry about."
Now Amy looked horrified.
"Leonard, I'm no expert here but I believe in the context of a luncheon invitation you might want to skip the reference to bowel movements." Sheldon remarked nonchalantly.
"Oh, you're inviting me over to eat?" Penny realized finally.
"Yes." Both, Leonard and Amy, verified with a relieved but awkward smile.
"That's so nice. I'd love to." said Penny. She stepped out of her messy apartment and turned to close the door. The three friends stared at each other with various degrees of disbelief and glee. "So, what's the event you guys are planning?" Penny asked then.
Amy grinned. "My and Sheldon's wedding." she said, flashing Penny the sparkling engagement ring.
"Aw, you guys are getting married? That's so wonderful." Penny smiled in delight.
Amy stopped abruptly before she and Penny, who were walking ahead, could enter apartment 4A. "Would you like to participate?" she asked, her eyes twinkling with excitement.
"Uh…" made Penny a little bewildered. "Well, I need to get settled first. My friend Bernadette will come by later to help me unpack, but, uh, yeah, sure. Why not. I'm always up for a good party." she smiled.
Amy breathed in and outmatched her smile tenfold. "Tell your friend Bernadette that she can participate, too."
With that Amy took Penny's hand and pulled her zealously into the apartment. The guys stayed behind for a few seconds.
"Leonard?" said Sheldon.
"Yeah?"
"You're not going to let this go, are you? You and Amy will find ways to get her entangled with our group and, before I know it, this girl and her mentioned friend will become fixtures in my apartment and our lives."
Leonard smiled dreamily. He could just picture it. "Our babies will be smart and beautiful."
"Not to mention imaginary." added Sheldon and they both followed the girls into the apartment.
-Enter the Big Bang Theory theme song- ;)
Thank you all so much for reading and extra special thanks to those who always reviewed! I appreciate it so much that you took the time to write me some feedback, even though I wasn't always able to reply! :)
I hope you enjoyed this little sequel story and if so, please let me know! Stay safe and healthy, lovely readers, wherever you are!