Chapter 52 - Initial Aftermath
It was almost two weeks before their friends saw Sheldon and Amy or Leonard and Penny, both couples taking off from work to obviously be alone. Even when Sheldon and Leonard came back to work, Howard and Raj barely even talked to them, both of them having lunch every day with their girlfriend/wife's and rushing home each night after work. So it was almost three weeks later, when Bernadette made a surprise visit to Amy, at her lab, that she saw the engagement ring and spread the news through their little group. That forced a girls night, a week later, but even then Amy and Penny seemed not to be completely there and the other girls, Bernadette, Cheryl and Alex, had to keep bringing them back mentally to the festivities at hand.
"Amy have you set a date?" Bernadette asked trying to get Amy's attention, her mind seeming to wander all night.
Amy looked at her and blinked, suddenly seeming to come back from the place she had been at all night. "Um…Sheldon wants to get married soon, we are planning it in three months."
"Oh my God! That is not far away. Penny have you been helping Amy with the planning." The last sentence laced with hurt as now Bernadette thought she knew why she hadn't seen her friends in a month, they were off planning Amy's wedding without the rest of them.
Penny looked at Bernadette, seeming to come back from the same place Amy was, before composing herself too, shaking her head. "I haven't seen Amy since before tonight." Then Penny seemed to get her head together. "I'm sorry guys, the last month has been nuts. After Sheldon came back, I immediately transferred to a desk job, you know because of the baby, and also these pesky hormones make me want Leonard all the time", 'because I'm madly in love with him.' she thought, "So, I haven't had time to do anything else." She gave them a little smile and was happy to get knowing smiles back from them. "But Bernadette's right, Amy we need to get this planned."
Everyone now started talking about Amy's wedding, which brought Amy completing back into the group discussion. The excitement of her friends was so contagious that before long Amy was excited too, as the girls started to put together timelines, tasks and everything else she needed to get done, to accomplish a wedding in three months. Having Bernadette there, who also had a quick wedding, also made things easier and it was only a couple hours later they had an outline of a plan for Amy to get married. It was the end of the evening, when Bernadette asked Amy if she wanted to drop her home that the girls got another surprise. "I don't have my apartment anymore." Amy shyly said.
Alex looked at her, "What happened Amy, do you need a place to stay?"
Amy shook her head blushing, "No…I live with Sheldon."
You could have heard a pin drop the girls were so stunned, even Penny had not know this, since she hadn't really seen Amy since Leonard and her had come back. However, after still having the memories of being with Sheldon back in time, Penny was the first to understand, "Amy that is great, I'm so happy for you…..both of you."
Amy smiled. "It is so great, better than I ever imagined, he has changed so much, he is so affectionate. I guess I have been so happy, I haven't been able to think about anything else." a tear slid down Amy's cheek after her words.
Penny grabbed a tissue trying not to cry herself, wiping Amy's cheek then pulling her into a hug, Penny knew how it was to be deeply in love, she had barely been able to let Leonard go, each day, since they came back. "Amy that is how people are when they are in love."
Amy nodded in Penny's hug, "I know…..he really loves me."
"I know sweetie, he really does." Penny gave her a little squeeze, she was happy for her friend but it was making her already miss Leonard.
Bernadette, Alex and Cheryl just stood there stunned watching their friends, before they all joined the hug, telling Amy they were happy for them, and finally all of them breaking down and crying.
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The next few weeks were busy as the girls saw more of each other and worked to make Amy's wedding happen on the date her and Sheldon wanted. So when the day came for a routine maternity doctor's visit, it was actually a little relaxing for Leonard and Penny as they went by themselves in for the checkup and routine sonogram. It was something personal for them involving just the two of them and soon to be third member of their growing family. However the relaxing part turned to panic as soon as the sonogram operator took the first picture. "What the Hell!" the Technician blurted out then looked at Leonard and Penny with wide eyes.
"What's wrong?" Leonard demanded, his hand now being crushed by Penny's, he knew in fear.
"I….I…..I have to get the doctor." the Technician then quickly left the room.
Penny and Leonard just looked at each, fear in their eyes as both of them thought about all they went through a month ago. Tears dripped down Penny's cheeks as she barely whispered to the man she loved, "Do you… do you think it did something to the baby?" she croaked out barely keeping the sobs back.
"No it couldn't" Leonard told her to comfort her, while hoping beyond hope he was right.
Before they said another word the doctor came in with the still shaken up Technician, seeing the fear in the new mothers eyes, "Mrs. Hofstadter, please don't worry, we are just going to take a look what we have here." the doctor giving her a warm smile of encouragement.
However while looking at the screen that smile turned to confusion as the doctor tried to understand what he was seeing. "I'll be dammed." he finally said. The doctor then looked at Penny and Leonard, "I've been a maturity doctor for 20 years and this has to be the biggest miss I have ever seen." he then noticed the fear in both their eyes. "Please don't worry, nothing is wrong with either of your babies."
Penny and Leonard blinked, then Leonard asked the question now on both their minds. "Babies, like in more than one."
The doctor nodded, "I don't how we could have missed this, but we did. Again there is nothing wrong, we are just surprised that you are having twins."
"Twins." Penny whispered, then she looked at Leonard, a sudden thought filling her mind as Leonard gave her a little smile and nod of understanding.
It was over an hour later, after being instructed by the medical staff about the requirements of being the mother of twins, that Penny sat in the car with Leonard. "Leonard, how….I mean could it have happened?" she looked at him still confused.
Leonard was a little baffled himself, "I have no idea, it seems too crazy to be true, but." he shook his head.
"It is crazy, but I swear there is a part of my mind that is screaming right now in joy." she looked up at him finally smiling.
"Twins." Leonard said
Penny nodded, "The more I think about it, I so want it to be true, that the second one is hers, the baby my other self wanted so badly." Penny looked at Leonard and bit her lip, Leonard immediately taking her into his arms and kissing her. It was another 20 minutes before he started car and they went right home spending the rest of the day in bed.
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The next day in the morning, Leonard cornered Sheldon in his office, closing the man's door and locking it, before sitting down to talk to him. "This seems serious Leonard." Sheldon had watched his friend the whole time quietly before their now beginning conversation, noting the apprehension in Leonard.
Leonard nodded, "I have a theoretical question for you." Leonard started.
Sheldon nodded, "That is my specialty, so shoot."
"Okay. Sheldon before you theorized that we were such an anomaly in time, that all our self's were combined when time was reset, so our minds were overlaid." Leonard recapped.
"Basically yes, but I thought I was much more eloquent." Sheldon answered.
'Same old Sheldon' Leonard thought, with a little smile, he actually was very happy that things were back to almost normal. "Anyway, that had to do with the electrical impulses and the matrix that make up our minds, do you thing we could have been put back together physically, too?"
Sheldon thought for a moment, "Actually I think if it happened to our minds it must have happened to our bodies too." Sheldon then noticed the intense stare he was getting from Leonard. "Why has something happened?" Suddenly Sheldon was worried, if something physical happened to any of them it would probably happen to them all.
Leonard nodded, "You could say that."
"What man! Explain what happened so I can address it immediately." Sheldon was now in the same mindset as when he was sick.
Leonard shook his head, "It is not our problem, only Penny's." Leonard wanted to calm him down, he could see the man panicking.
Sheldon looked at him, "Since the main difference between Penny and us is her lady parts." Sheldon then got quiet looking at his concerned friend. "Is it the baby?" he asked softly. Leonard just nodded.
"Is it okay?" Sheldon asked quietly again, he actually felt sorry for his friend, if that was the case.
Leonard sighed. "We found out yesterday there is now two babies inside her."
Sheldon looked at him, "That is impossible, the other Penny would have to had been pregnant for that to have any chance of happening. She wasn't pregnant was she?"
"Maybe." Leonard confessed.
"You mean in less than ten days you and the other Penny were already engaging in coitus, Leonard! Now with Penny's libido I could see that happening, but you seemed to have more sense before that." Sheldon admonished him.
"It was not that way, it happened while we were in England waiting for you to convince yourself to go back." Leonard explained.
"So me trying to save our timeline and our way of life, turned you both on!" Sheldon was incredulous.
Leonard sadly shook his head, "Knowing in a couple hours that life, as we knew it would end, especially for Penny, made us make love to each other. It was like the last request of a doomed person, I couldn't deny her."
Sheldon stared at him for a moment, then just nodded. "If she got pregnant, then it is possible the universe put the second baby in our Penny, especially if their DNA was slightly different. So yes it is possible."
Leonard nodded, "Sheldon if we forget our other memories in the future, will the second baby go away too?"
Sheldon didn't know. "I really don't know, memories disappearing is a lot easier than making a baby disappear, so maybe not."
Leonard nodded, "One other question, the new baby is the same size as the first baby, that doesn't seem to make sense."
Sheldon shrugged, "There are probably some physical laws that we could find to explain that, if we wanted to waste our time, but I think the easy answer is just like when the universe combined our minds, it was a compromise. Technically the other Penny's baby would be older than yours, since it was conceived during World War II, but then it also wasn't developed very much in the womb, so there were many variables, requiring a compromise."
Leonard nodded, like before they really didn't have any answers, but they had a couple plausible theories, he knew it was the best he could get from the only man in the world who could be called an expert in time travel. "Thanks Sheldon."
"Your welcome Leonard." Sheldon said with a lot more satisfaction then he felt.
Leonard got up and headed to the door, looking back at his friend before he left, "Well back to work." he smiled and tried to sound more light-hearted then he felt.
Sheldon nodded, "Good luck Leonard, and tell Penny all my hopes go with her." Leonard nodded and smiled as he left Sheldon's office.