As Leonard descended the stairs, he felt his chest tighten and his breath seemed to come up short. He was incensed and crazed, euphoric and depressed. He had pictured in his mind telling Penny he loved her but it always ended with her reciprocating his love. Now he had blurted it out in anger and jealousy and with her expressing anger and loathing towards him.

Oh! Dear God! It will never be the same! I've lost her and I cannot go on living next door to her knowing I can never share anything ever again with her.

He grabbed his keys from his pockets as he reached the lobby doors and headed towards his car. He would get in and drive as far as he could until his anger would dissipate. He'd call Raj or Wolowitz and ask them if he could stay with them until he found a new roommate. He would also help Sheldon secure a new living buddy. When he came back, he would take some of his basic belongings with him and leave. It was just too painful to live next door to Penny anymore without having something to share with her.

Leonard was on auto pilot now; before he realized it he was driving down the street at an alarming rate of speed. It seemed as though he just appeared in the car. He had peeled out of his parking space and gunned the engine until he made into the street. So immersed in his anger and sadness he was that he never noticed Penny yelling after him, begging him to stop and come back to her.

"Leonard! Leonard! Stop! Come back!" she vainly yelled as saw his car disappear from her view.

Oh my God! Where is he going? I need to talk to him. We need to talk! Penny thought. She quickly raced upstairs and out of breath she went inside her apartment, reaching for her cell phone on the bar, she speed dialed Leonard's Cell Phone.

Leonard stopped at the light. He couldn't wait for the red light to change fast enough. As the Yellow light appeared for the cross traffic, he readied himself to pull out.

At that instant, his cell phone rang, the light turned green, he gunned the car again and at the same time saw that it was Penny calling him.

Leonard never noticed the car accelerating to make the light before it turned red. At the last instant the driver realized he had another car right in front of him. He slammed the brakes as hard as he could, but his car swerved and shook from the sudden command to halt at 55 miles an hour. Both cars crashed into each other like an ocean wave striking a rock on shore. The terrible sound of screeching tires bound in a package with colliding bodies and the sound of glass shattering and then dancing onto the pavement in a cacophony of individual ballet repeated countless times in a less than 10 seconds.

Leonard's car's left side was crushed in and his body lay slumped over toward the passenger side. Blood trickled down his forehead and out of his left nostril. His glasses slapped away into a corner of his car; his vision blurry only enough to see a vision of Penny before blacking out into unconsciousness.

Penny tried calling again as she hurriedly made her way downstairs again. At first the ringing was climaxed by the sound of Leonard's voice asking the caller to leave a message. But the second attempt to reach him resulted in a sterile voice saying that the caller Penny was trying to reach was unavailable or out of the service area.

How strange?! Penny thought. How can it change over that quickly?

Had he turned the cell off or thrown it out the window? Leonard wouldn't do that!

She feared the worst and ran to her car, got into it, started it and gunned the engine. She hoped that she could somehow catch up to him even though; he had several minutes head start on her. As fearful as she was that something might have happened to Leonard, driving as angry as he was, she was still warm with the glow that even in his anger, voice he had displayed to her; he told her that he loved her.

"He loves me! He really does love me!" she said to herself out loud.

All this time she had suspected that he had deep feelings for her and it was now true, she admitted to herself that she had been harboring deep feelings for him as well. Ever since their first date and their decision not to push the envelope on their relationship, she had seen Leonard in a different light. He was shy, she could see it. He was nervous around her, even when he was trying to impress her with his knowledge and not seem so dorky and geeky. But he wasn't like Kurt or any of the other guys that threw that macho bravado at her, trying to look cool by their talk and looks only for her to painfully discover that their actions came nowhere near in matching that pompous arrogance they mistook for animal magnetism.

Leonard didn't do any of that. Even when he could have really taken advantage of her that night of the Halloween party when she had too much liquor, he didn't. Although she could later reflect on how he was kicking himself for not doing anything with her by serving herself on a silver platter for him. Leonard had acted gentlemanly and chivalrous and had passed on the opportunity. It was at this moment that she began to see that although he wanted her, he would not do it underhandedly.

She had seen how he didn't want to ruin their friendship even at the cost of not going out on their first date. What finally slapped Penny in the face was how he reacted when she went out those few times with David Underhill, Leonard's colleague at Cal Tech. She could start to see he was immerging from his shell. How he pointedly reminded her that he had asked her several times to the campus but had turned him down, only to jump at the first invitation David had given her. How he questioned her stated interest in science in David's presence, then when David's true colors emerged and wanted to commit adultery with Penny, driving the point home with the 100 Science Experiment for Kids Kit he gave her as a Christmas present.

What is wrong with you!? What were you thinking?! she questioned herself as she pounded the palm of her hand into her forehead. "Why did you sleep with Marc?!" she said out loud.

Indeed, Marc had been coming into the Cheesecake factory for a while and had struck up a conversation every now and then. He seemed nice. Nice enough for her to go after work and have a drink with and then the next time bring him home and have sex with him. She still couldn't come up with an excuse as to why she did that knowing the feelings that were stirring within for Leonard. She realized now, thinking back, that she really had been feeling something for Leonard since early in the relationship. How he tried to apologize for cleaning up her apartment in the middle of the night with Sheldon. How sweet he looked trying to shove his apology note under her door. How the jealousy bug had bit her a bit when Leonard had sex with Leslie Winkle and had resumed the relationship soon after their first date in response to her dating someone else again. Yet she had never felt as jealous as when Leonard had an even longer relationship with Dr. Stephanie Barnett.

Thank God that was no over! she thought.

The doctor was definitely too clingy!

She scanned the road while looking at parked cars to see if Leonard had parked anywhere. This was a long shot. She thought about turning back when she had to break suddenly, the fast flowing traffic came to a sudden slowdown. Something had happened ahead to bring the traffic to a crawl.

It must be an accident.

Her stomach then sank. "Oh please! I hope Leonard's not in it" she pleaded out loud.

She closed her eyes and prayed that nothing had happened to him. Yet she also remembered how Leonard had taken off at a high rate of speed from their parking lot.

What seemed an eternity for the traffic to move, she finally came upon the intersection too discover, much to her horror, Leonard's Car crushed on the left hand side with another car next to him with a crushed in front. An ambulance was on the scene and some policemen. Slowly increasing in volume another ambulance's siren could be heard approaching and a small gathering of pedestrians were gathering at the corner to witness the crash site.

There was a man being helped to the curb; a blond haired guy with a large gauze pad being applied to his head. The paramedic continued helping him by asking him questions and looking into his face to make sure he stayed conscious.

As she glanced toward the ambulance, she could see Leonard on the gurney, his eyes closed and his face stained red with dried wiped away blood. A respirator was over his face.

"Oh my God, no! Leonard, no!" she screamed to herself.

She quickly pulled the car over into the nearest available space. She didn't care where at the moment.

She flung open the car door and raced into the street, dodging the slow moving cars.

"Leonard! LEONARD!!" she yelled, hoping to get a response from him as she closed the distance between her and the back of the ambulance.

"I'm sorry Miss, but he's being taken to the hospital. Are you a relative?" asked the paramedic.

"I'm his neighbor" her voice and lips trembled, her eyes quickly filling with tears.

"I've known him for two years" Tears streamed down her face.

"Does he have any next of kin?"

"Not here, back East" Penny replied with a trembling voice. Her eyes focused back on Leonard. "His family lives back East." "Is he going to be ok? Please say he's going to be alright!" She cried.

Leonard, no! This isn't happening. Her tears continued to run.

"Well, he's got a couple of broken ribs, his left arm is broken and he's on a respirator. We'll do the best we can." The paramedic responded, thinking it was better to give her some hope. He could tell that Penny was more than just a neighbor. He saw how deeply she cared for him due to her distraught state.

"Where are you taking him?" she asked.

"Huntington Memorial" the paramedic responded.

"I'll be there!" she replied. She wiped away the tears and scrambled back to her car, again avoiding the traffic tie up.

She climbed back in her car and started the engine. She made her way into traffic and the next light turned right and headed towards the hospital.

It was the longest drive of Penny's life.