Leonard came out the door of his apartment. It was a very nice Friday, since for once he had a weekend, a very rare weekend alone. Sheldon had accumulated vacation time and had gone to Texas to be with his mother, at Mary's Cooper's insistence, due to the fact that Sheldon had not been home in over six years.

With Sheldon out of the way and Wolowitz attending a cousin's Bar mitzvah in San Diego, with Raj in tow; the weekend was clear for Leonard to do with his time as he saw fit. He figured that taking a sick day once in a while and adding an extra day to the weekend would be a good way of clearing his mind. Perhaps go for a walk or for a drive.

A drive! That would be nice, he figured.

He could make some sandwiches and ask Penny to go with him on a drive to Santa Monica or Zuma or one of the beaches. There they could park and take a walk on the beach. Then eat, talk and then come back after the Friday traffic had cleared. Maybe, they could go to the movies make it a full day. Besides it was warm for January and they should take advantage of the weather before it got cold and rainy again.

Who am I kidding? He thought.

Sure things were a more secure and stable footing with Penny since Christmas when he had confronted her about David Underhill and how she had ignored him for excitement of being with the good looking physicist from his work. It still angered him when he thought about how she had pretended to like science in order for David to like her even more.

Gleefully, Leonard silently reflected that even though he did not like how David had ultimately treated Penny, nevertheless, she had learned another hard lesson on why pretty boys were not the safest bet in a relationship. Hopefully, he had made her realize by exposing her insane reasoning of not dating guys who were too smart for her and had gone out with Underhill who was smarter than him; it destroyed her argument that they could not date, or at the very least go out as friends.

She probably won't go out with me. But hey! I'll give it a shot and what have I got to lose?

This was at least a step up from Leonard's first attempts to go out with Penny and his tortuous mental and physiological struggles with himself to get the courage to ask her out.

At least now he could be calmer and approach with more confidence now that they had known each other nearly 2 years.

After a quick breakfast, Leonard cleaned up and headed out across the corridor to Penny's apartment. He approached the door and knocked.

There was no answer. Hmmm, he thought, I know Penny is off today and since it was after 9:00 a.m. it wasn't that early where Penny would have opened the door in a coffee deprived stupor ready to chew him out about how he hated sleep on a non working day.

He knocked again. Still no answer and now he grew worried.

Could she have gone out? Not likely. Had she been called into work? Great timing! He thought. A nice day with Penny was about go down the drain!

As he went to knock a third time, he heard the doorknob move, looking down he saw it turn and as he prepared to greet Penny with an enthusiastic good morning, the door opened to reveal… a … guy?!

"Can I help you?" the guy muttered from the slightly opened door.

Leonard was taken a back for a moment. He had seen Penny with other guys before, but never one that opened her apartment door and was standing with what appeared to be no shirt on. Furthermore, from his body language and the way he was leaning, he didn't have any clothes on at all!

Great! Why do I even bother? She's done it again to me!

"I'm sorry, is Penny here" Leonard asked half confused, half defensively.

"Who are you?" he asked Leonard.

"I'm Leonard, Penny's friend and neighbor from across the way there." Leonard felt his neck turn red and hot. Why did he always get defensive when a guy like this asked him a question?

"Oh, well Penny's still asleep and won't be coming out right now if you know what I mean." The guy winked at Leonard and all that implied.

"Oh, Ok, please tell her that I came by and I'll talk to her later," he retreated away from the door.

Well this day is shot!

"Sure" the naked man replied from inside Penny's apartment. "But don't bet on it!" He kind of half whispered so that it would subtly creep into Leonard's mind that she wouldn't be talking to Leonard the rest of the day because he would make sure that he and Penny would be busy doing other – things.

"Excuse me?!" Leonard turned around and stared back at this stranger, who apparently was another loser Penny had picked up.

What is wrong with her!? Leonard thought. Why can't she get it through her head that these guys were nothing but a hop in the sack for them, a way for them to put another notch in their belt of sexual contest? Penny meant nothing to them except carnal indulgence.

He on the other hand had come to like Penny for who she was behind the blue eyes, the golden hair, and her soft luscious skin. True the physical attributes she carried had initially drawn him to her but after all this time, he saw her as multi-dimensional. She could hold her own with Wolowitz and Sheldon and make up for the social inadequacies he carried around his neck like the proverbial Albatross. Penny to Leonard had become more than a pretty face. She completed Leonard and he completed her. As he recoiled from this guy's half audible remark, Leonard came to realize his anger was not only jealousy but also because he realized – he loved Penny.

He was in love with her and nobody deserved her like he did and nobody deserved to treat her like a sexual rag doll.

"What did you say?!" he raised his voice heading toward Penny's apartment door.

Apparently, the guy did a double take, because he wasn't prepared for Leonard to respond to the statement he had just made under his breath.

Before the guy could close the door, Leonard was upon him.

He pushed the door open and knocked the guy back towards Penny's sofa.

Embarrassment being the better part of valor the guy scrambled to cover up.

"What do you mean, 'don't bet on it!" Leonard screeched louder, as he pushed the guy onto the bar stools, knocking the pillows from his hands and sending the guy head first into the bar ledge.

Before Leonard could push him again, Penny's arms clamped around Leonard.

"Leonard! Leonard! STOP IT!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" STOP PUSHING HIM!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN DON'T BET ON IT!!" he yelled at the now fully naked man on the floor rubbing his head, wondering how this nerdy guy with glasses had become a raging bull bent on his destruction.

"Leonard!" Penny yelled again, "What's the matter with you?! Have you gone nuts?!" she asked incredulously at the sight before her. She had to stop him because she knew that even though Leonard held the upper hand at the moment, Marc could get up and rearrange Leonard's face with one punch.

She quickly spun Leonard around so she could face him.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HAVE I GONE NUTS?!" he yelled back at her.

"What about you? Have you gone nuts?! Or should I ask are you still sane?! Why do you pick up losers like this?! Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. This is part of your 36 hour meaningless, sexual recovery therapy from another fractured relationship. Which of course will lead to another doomed relationship leading to another 36 hour cycle; you're caught in an endless loop Penny!!" He finally ended out of breath and inhaling and exhaling rapidly.

I've had it with this!! He thought.

"You barge into my apartment, attack my boyfriend and you're asking me have I gone nuts?!" She barked back at him. Penny was in complete disarray as to how he was accusing her.

Why is he so angry? She thought. He's never acted like this! I thought things were good between us?

But she knew he was right, none of her relationships worked out with these guys and although he had a point, she was angry at him for bringing it out in the open.

"Oh, I see your boyfriend!!" Leonard uttered and gestured the quotation marks sign, cutting her off before she could rebut him. The word boyfriend cut him to the quick.

"Yes, and that's none of your business anyway! Why are you so jealous of whom I see with anyway! I thought you were ok with the way stood between us; or did we not settle this last month?"

While this was going on, Marc was finally get his faculties and realized he needed to get dressed and get out of this mess. He realized he was the wrong corner of this triangle and he needed to untangle himself from it – fast! Rubbing his head while covering up, he said:

"I don't need this, Ok?" "Especially for a one night fling" Marc headed into Penny's bedroom and started to get dressed.

"Marc, you don't need to go! Leonard's the one who needs to leave!" She stared at him with the same eyes she had used early in their friendship after he and Sheldon had broken into her apartment in the middle of the night to clean and straighten it.

Leonard realized that Penny's choice of words were to make him believe this was a solid relationship, which he saw through anyway. Yet when she chose those words, boyfriend, in any other context other than it would include him, it boiled his blood. Now she wanted him to leave, maybe for good. Maybe she didn't want to see him anymore.

"Fine!" he barked. "I'll go"

Just ahead of him Marc, finished putting his shoes on and was out the door.

"Marc, don't leave!" Penny half pleaded as she headed toward her apartment door, but her pleas went on deaf ears as she could hear his footsteps growing fainter as he descended the stairwell.

She slammed the door in frustration.

"Before I kick you out of my apartment for the last time, I want to know what is wrong with you and why you would attack someone I'm seeing. This is none of your business Leonard! None of your business!!" She repeated.

All through his life Leonard had kowtowed to everyone else's whim and point of view. First his parents, who never gave him a birthday celebration and had orchestrated his life up to the time he had left home and could never seem to live up to their expectations.

All through, school, he was always picked on and ridiculed and beaten up on for being smart. Now, even as Sheldon's roommate he had to succumb to Sheldon's Three Strike law and the No Whistling rule along with all of his idiosyncrasies. And now to add insult to injury, the girl he cared for and wanted was about to throw him out of her life forever. He couldn't quite figure out why as hard as he tried to make his life better, it all crashed on the rocks of reality that crushed his spirit to move and grow beyond his current situation.

At first he didn't respond as he made his way to the door with a scowl on his face. Penny simply returned the facial gesture. As he reached for the door, he finally felt he had enough. He turned around and faced Penny to tell her where he stood.

"Before I go, I want to inform you young lady that I lied to you when I said I was fine with the way stood between us. Far from it; I am not ok with the way things stand between us! For two years I have watched you waste your time, affection and energy on guys that see you as nothing more than a conquest between the sheets. They don't care about you; they don't love you and certainly don't want a relationship with you, other than a constant hop in the sack!" He accused her with a stare that seemed to burn his image into her pupils.

Her arms slowly went from being crossed to hanging at her sides. She felt small; confused by the sudden unleashing of Leonard's pent up frustrations. She could scarcely believe this was the same man who was guarded and seemed to dance around the discussion of where the true state of their relationship stood.

He continued.

"But here I am, caring for you, concerned about you, worried about you and for what?!" He raised his voice higher.

"Maybe you would notice me beyond being your friend? I hoped for it. But when it didn't happen, I reconciled myself to the fact that I am physically not in the league of all your male boyfriends you have had and that the only way I could be with you is as your friend and to be happy with the knowledge that in at the very least we could be happy together just as friends! He stated.

"But you know what? I can't stand it anymore! I want to be with you, I want to care for you and make you smile and happy and look after you for the rest of my life!" He thought his heart would explode as the thought of what he would say next.

"I love you! How can I say it more clearly? I wake up and you're in my thoughts. I go to work and you're in my thoughts. I go to sleep and you're in my head and I can't get you out of there or out of my heart!"

Penny's eyes widened in disbelief at the words he spoke.

"But I fooled myself into believing that I could be happy just being your friend. I believed at first that by earning your friendship, you would like me and help me achieve a status I never even dreamed of before in my entire life! Not being a perpetual outsider to the majority of the human race and relegated to a class of looked down upon people who have only toiled endlessly for decades to bring pleasure and leisure to the uninspired, unthinking masses!!"

"I love you!" He opened his arms, caught his breath to slow himself down and gesturing at her said: "And if you want to go on living this deception and this lifestyle, so be it. Just realize you'll end your days lonely and old and miserable! But somewhere out there, I, will still - love you." His voice softened a bit at the end. He could hardly believe that he had let it all spill out.

"Goodbye Penny" He turned away and walked out the door and made a left at the stairs and descended to the 1st floor lobby.

I'll never see you again! I'm such a fool!

She was stunned.

She couldn't believe this had come from Leonard. She reached out behind her to feel for the sofa so it could catch her. No man had ever expressed his feelings to her. No guy had ever told her "I love you" with the intensity, sincerity, passion and conviction that she had just heard him speak to her.

She replayed his words in her head and the most repeated word she heard over and over again was: "I love you!"

She was dumbfounded and then a sudden thrill and chill came over her simultaneously.

"Goodbye Penny" he had said. What did that mean? Goodbye for now or goodbye for ever? No!

She needed to tell him how she felt before it was too late.