Chapter 27 - The Truth
Leonard and Penny when to the Physics Department offices, Leonard's keys opening all the doors, then to his office. The safe was easy to find and the combination was correct so it didn't take long for Penny to find the envelope addressed to her with the DVD in it. They then quickly powered up her husbands desktop computer and inserted the DVD and waited, Penny softly gasping when her husbands face immediately appeared on the screen.
Leonard stared at the screen too, watching the man who looked almost exactly like him, stare back at them, obviously trying to compose himself. He was a little thinner than Leonard, actually sickly thin, and his skin was pale, he actually didn't look well, but there was something else different about him that Leonard couldn't place. Looking more at him Leonard noticed even his eyes had a sunken in look to them with dark areas below them, like he hadn't slept well for a while, he looked like Penny had told him earlier, the life seemed to be draining out of him. Leonard immediately felt sorry for the man, then wondered if he could ever look like that too, his thoughts quickly extinguished as the man began to talk.
"Penny, I hope you got this before you listed me as missing, or at least before anyone found Sheldon's time machine. Penny I also hope you already know the machine works, because it does and it is the most evil thing devised by man, it really needs to be destroyed. I have put a logic bomb into its computer which will go off 1 hour after activated and I will tell you how to do that later, then when the software is destroyed, you will need to contact my old friend Howard Wolowitz and have him take it apart. Please don't tell anyone about it, not ever Howard, it is too dangerous and if used could destroy mankind. But again that is for later."
The man, who was Penny's husband, stopped talking for a few seconds, obviously composing his thoughts. Penny looked at Leonard in confusion, not saying a word, as they both looked at each other. They both turned back to the screen quickly when the man started to talk again.
"Penny first understand that I love you and have always loved you, but I have been deceiving you for years. I hope you have already met up with a Leonard who looks and acts like he is a copy of me, because Penny….." the man down looked down at his hands obviously trying to get strength for what he was going to say next, which worried Leonard. "Penny that Leonard, is not a copy, he is actually me."
Penny eyes shot around to look at Leonard in shock, while Leonard just sat there with his mouth open, staring at the man on the screen.
"Penny, you need to know the obvious pain, I had the last year, has been more about my knowing I would be leaving you and never seeing you again, not really that much about what happened with you and that man. All I have to say about what happened a year ago, is it happened and I never stopped loving you after it happened, it is over, don't worry about it anymore, please. I wish I could have told you what was going to happen, but I couldn't, you would have stopped me, and not being able to tell you was a major part of my depression. It actually ate into my soul, the need to leave, the lying, what I had to do before, actually this DVD telling you about it all gives me some comfort that I can finally tell you the truth. But even though we both suffered, I had to get you use to me not being around and the last year of avoiding you, because of my guilt, was the only way I could think to do it. I'm sorry for the pain I caused you, but I think some day you will understand. At least I hope you will, please don't hate me." Penny mouthed, 'I love you', as she continued to watch the man on the screen.
"Let me try to explain what happened. We were married in the original timeline, you were pregnant with our child, and we had a great group of friends we hung out with. This whole thing that changed everything started with Sheldon and an obsession he had all his life with time travel and String Theory. Sheldon obsession caused him to leave Amy to dedicate his life to science, plus his Nobel Prize, so when it was stolen from him by a Dr Raymond Lewis, he sort of cracked. He had built a Time Machine in secret and his String Theory work made him understand time travel, so he decided Lewis was to blame for loosing his Nobel and Amy. So Lewis had to pay, and he went back in time to kill Raymond Lewis' grandfather, so Raymond Lewis was never born. He wasn't really thinking right and he picked a critical time in history, just before D-Day in World War II. He had to be stopped, the risk of changing history was too great, so I went with a special team of soldiers to get him back and we also sent airplanes to protect Lewis' grandfathers plane. We succeeded in stopping him but when we tried to go back to our time, that is when the problems happened and we ended up in this new timeline. Our timeline was now corrupted and didn't exist anymore, this new one took over and we really didn't belong here. However, after a little while being here, Sheldon found he had everything he wanted so Sheldon didn't want to leave. Since that timeline's Leonard, Penny's husband, and their Sheldon went back into time before we arrived, my Sheldon wanted to leave them or get rid of them and take over their lives. So Penny and I proceeded to try and find Penny's husband and their Sheldon, then I planned to leave with my Sheldon, but with Sheldon not agreeing, that's when everything went bad, really bad. A lot of things happened, but the worst was…" Again the man looked at his hands trying to compose himself before he continued. "Penny ended up being killed and I ended up killing Sheldon." Penny's husband then stopped talking and just sat there staring at them. Penny and Leonard just looked at each other in shock, not knowing what to say.
The man on the TV screen started to speak again after a few moments. "I hope I am with you now Penny, because if I am not you need to get me and let me see this." The man then took a breath, obviously to steel himself to continue, "Okay, after Sheldon was gone, I sat around a few days just thinking and decided had to go back, I couldn't live with what happened." the man's voice got very low as he looked down at his hands, "I couldn't let Penny die." The man was silent for a whole minute, before he looked back up from the screen back at them, "So I went back in time to just before Penny moved into the apartment building, to make sure we never met, I didn't want her to die and I figured I had give her up to see her live. The Leonard that existed then, I drugged and brought him back for a week till I found a place safe then sent him into the future, he is okay, but probably doesn't know what happened to him, I think he will adapt, he never met Penny so he never will know what his live could have been like." The man was silent for a few seconds while he thought, then started to speak again. "I then avoided Penny, but after a week we ran into each other and I don't know why but fate put us together again. I think part of it was I weak, I had lost her only a few months before and I wasn't over it, because I found I didn't have the strength to dismiss her when she was trying to be friends with me. So we became friends, which then became boyfriend and girlfriend, finally getting married, like my previous timeline, everything really happening fast because I cheated, I knew her too well and I didn't make the mistakes like when I met her the first time in my timeline. Also I knew the future, so I made a changes to her life by making sure Penny got her wish, to be a actress and star." The man stopped again looking guilty.
After a couple seconds the man started again. "I also 'Accidentally Found' Sheldon's time machine." the man made quotes in the air when he said 'Accidentally Found', then seemed embarrassed at what he did and continued, "So I made him include me in the project so I could start this process to destroy the machine and stop Sheldon. It took years to get it together and the machine to finally work then came the day when you got here and I left. I took Sheldon back to prehistoric times, where he can never return and change time, plus I sabotaged the markers so we can't return, this timelines Sheldon is out of the picture." He stopped for a few seconds and picked up a water bottle to take a drink.
The man then began again. "I need to tell you how bad things can happen, so you understand why destroying the machine and keeping Sheldon from building another is so important. Let me start with a girl named Alex, she was an PHD at Cal Tech and our friend, but her grandfathers brother was on the airplane that Sheldon tried to kill Lewis in. He died and sent a chain of events into play that resulted in Alex's father never meeting her mother, so Alex was never born, she was wiped out of existence."
"Oh my God!" Leonard gasped, now understanding why Penny never knew Alex, she didn't exist anymore.
The man continued. "The changes impacted our friends too. Penny and I got together earlier so we spent less time with Howard and Raj, so one day a left turn in time happened that should have been a right turn. Howard and Raj were driving Howard's mom to the store and had a car accident, they were hit by a drunk driver and Howard's mom died. He completely broke down and we couldn't help him, he became an introvert and not even Raj could get through, plus he never met Bernadette. Raj ended up going back to India and was forced to marry by his parents, his marriage was bad. I tried to do something but was not successful with them, the only person I could help was Sheldon, I put him on the dating site and found him Amy. Since there was just me and Penny and we got married early, Sheldon and Amy got closer faster and got married in this timeline. Bottom line, there were a lot of big changes to our friends by time traveling." He took another drink of water.
"But those were actually small changes, though a personal ones. There were bigger changes, Major Lewis, the man Sheldon tried to kill, became a hero and got a Congressional Medal of Honor for that day, ran for the Senate and was a politician all his life. He was the Senate defense committee and pushed every new advanced project especially the military converting to jet aircraft. His son became a politician too and was Secretary of Defense further pushing his fathers ideas and he had a son Raymond, who didn't get a PHD in Physics but got one in Political Science and became a politician too. Leonard went to school with him and they became friends, so one of our old friends now is Raymond Lewis, if you can believe that. Leonard he made sure the Government funded our laser research and is part of the reason we have a Nobel Prize." The man stopped for a few seconds to let that all sink in.
The information was overwhelming and Leonard just sat there in stunned silence. Raymond Lewis was his friend, that was truly crazy he thought.
Penny's husband put the bottle down and continued. "So now the rest is up to you, you need to prevent your Sheldon from doing this again, because with his eidetic mind he can easily build another machine unless you find a way to stop him. Then you need to destroy the current machine, it can never be used again, it is just too dangerous." The man then sighed and just looked at them again.
"I have created a sort of time loop right now, if you fail, you can do what I did and go back in time to the point I did and start over again. There are a list of coordinates in the envelope to help you and some other information on the program for the machine. I'm not a hundred percent sure if there will be a Leonard there for you to send away, like I did, but it is the safest way to go back, it worked okay for me. But you have to understand every time you go back you change things, that is why the machine is so dangerous, just going back changes things." He stopped talking again to obviously compose he thoughts.
The man now started again, "Penny, tell Leonard what you want him to do, if he has to go back again, if anything happens. Tell him if you want to meet him again or not, it should be your decision this time. I'm sorry I didn't give you that choice before, I'm really sorry, I'll live with that the rest of my life." The man shook his head and looked down at his hands again thinking.
The man then looked at them. "If you fail again then when the next Leonard comes back again he will have your DVD and my DVD to tell him what I am telling you so he can try and stop Sheldon again. However if you succeed, you can stop the loop and just live there the rest of your life. There will be no machine and no one will move in time again. I know it sounds crazy, but believe me everything I am telling you is true."
The on screen Leonard then went on for another hour explaining what him and Penny tried to do to stop Sheldon and what went wrong. Then he gave Leonard a lot of information about what his job entailed at Cal Tech and what he was working on currently. By the time he was done, Leonard thought maybe he could fool people until he adapted to this life and had a better idea on what he had to do about Sheldon and the machine. However, Leonard still didn't know if he really belonged or what Penny thought and wanted, she just sat there listening the whole time not saying a word.
The man on the screen then sighed again and Leonard knew he was coming to the end of his talk to them. "Penny, this is important, like I said before the man that came to you and hopefully is with you now is me, before I came back and met you again, he is me and your husband, only younger." Leonard now knew what was different about the man on the TV screen, he was older than him by several years, he could now see it around his eyes now.
The man on the screen continued, "Penny, I love you and always will. I know this all is crazy but I am that man, again I hope he is sitting next to you right now. I was your husband in the original timeline and you married me again in your timeline. I am so sorry to do this all to you, but that man next to you hasn't lied to you, like I have, he is honest and loves you, he is the man who loved you before I became the man I am now. I really think you and me are better together than apart, so stop Sheldon, destroy the machine and live happily ever after together. I know this is so unreal, a fairy tale, but believe me it is very serious, otherwise I would have never left like this, but Penny you didn't loose me, I am sitting next to you." He was quiet for a couple seconds, then looked out at them a tear in his eye. "Good-bye Penny, I love you." He then reached towards something under the screen and the screen turned to static, meaning the recording was over.
Penny just stared at the screen for a couple minutes then turned to look at Leonard, her eyes wide, tears slowly dripping down her cheeks. "Leonard?"
Leonard was so stunned he didn't know what to say, but in his mind and heart he knew he the man on the screen was him.