A/N: Last chapter of part 2!
Special thanks to delucababe, a beta as good as her is a rare find. :D
Part 2 Chapter 5
It was a ridiculous idea, despite Sheldon's weirdly compelling argument. Sheldon seemed to have always harbored a desire to procreate but at the same time was turned off by babies and childbirth. She could easily see how this idea would appeal to him.
Penny silently ate her dinner as Leonard and Sheldon argued the merits of the idea. Sheldon had an answer prepared for every one of Leonard's objections. And then suddenly, Leonard stopped talking. Sheldon attempted to re-engage him in conversation, but Leonard merely grunted or shrugged his answers as if he no longer cared how the situation played out.
Penny felt a stab a fear that she did not want to examine too closely, and made a hasty retreat from the dinner table.
She stopped in the doorway to her and Leonard's bedroom and then turned around and headed to the spare room she had been painstakingly turning into a nursery. Penny had finished painting the crib the day before. It was dry now and ready for a baby that would never come.
An hour passed and Leonard knocked on the door she hadn't shut all the way.
"Penny? Can we talk... oh," Leonard's face fell when Penny turned to look at him. She hadn't realized she'd been crying until that moment.
Leonard pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried. When she finally pulled away she was surprised to see his cheeks etched with tear tracks which mirrored her own.
"Penny, do you ever wish..." he trailed off and stared at her face as she sniffed and wiped at her eyes.
"Wish what?" She asked, her voice weak form crying.
He was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."
Penny looked at him curiously but didn't say anything. She watched his face as he looked around the room. Leonard hadn't been in there before that she knew of and was pleased to see his small smile of approval.
"I think you should do it," he said, breaking the silence.
"Do what?" She asked in confusion.
"Have Sheldon's baby."
Penny's heart skipped a beat and it was suddenly hard to breathe.
"You mean, let Sheldon help us to have a baby," She clarified, hesitantly.
He broke eye contact to look at the floor. "Yeah."
Penny suddenly felt like this was one of those really important moments in life that change everything. She glanced at the empty crib, then back at Leonard.
"Yeah, okay."
He met her eyes again, his expression unreadable before pulling her into another hug. If her mind hadn't been whirling with all the things she needed to do and the hope that she might actually get a baby to put in that empty crib, she might have realized how much that hug felt like a 'goodbye'.
The first thing Sheldon and Penny decided on was they would not tell Mary beforehand. Neither wanted to give her the opportunity to talk (or shame) them out of trying. Once they knew for sure a baby was coming, they would tell Sheldon's mother the truth. She wouldn't be happy with them first, but as soon as Mary realized she had another grandchild on the way, they were confident the excitement would overcome the displeasure at how the child was conceived.
Sheldon pointed out that Beverly Hofstadter would be the actual grandmother anyway as Leonard would be adopting any child resulting from the procedure. Penny shuddered at the thought of that cold and impersonal woman as a grandmother, but kept it to herself.
The fertility doctor had them wait through two more of Penny's cycles before scheduling the procedure. In that time, Sheldon was very particular about what and when they ate, exercised, and how long and when they slept. Penny wanted to complain about him to Mary during their nightly calls, but was able to hold her tongue. Instead, she complained about how Leonard had returned to his old habits of staying away for weeks at a time and staying too busy for more than a five minute skype call a few days a week.
They finally did the procedure, two months after making the decision. Penny wished she could find out right away if it worked, but the doctor warned her it could be up to six weeks before they knew for sure. Still, Penny bought a whole bunch of home pregnancy test kits and started testing herself daily before even a week had passed.
After three weeks of negative tests, Penny began spotting and feeling that tell-tale ache that accompanied her time of the month. She was disappointed, but not as much as she had thought she would be. She and Sheldon had both been checked out physically so there was nothing health-wise to prevent a pregnancy, but these things could take time. Sheldon had promised they could try at least four times before it would become a financial strain. Still, when Leonard got in unexpectedly that same evening, he found Penny sitting in the floor of the nursery sipping on a glass of wine.
"So, I take it from the wine you are not pregnant?" He asked sadly.
Penny shook her head then shrugged. "No. But this was just the first try. We'll wait a month then try again," she reassured him.
Leonard nodded and then walked into the room to sit cross-legged in front of her. He removed the messenger bag he always carried with him and set it on the floor beside him.
"How are you feeling, Penny?"
Penny shrugged again and frowned at her still mostly full wineglass.
"I'm okay. Disappointed, but okay. And I think the wine is making me a little nauseated. It's been so long since I've had any..." she trailed off when she saw a determined look settle on his face.
"Leonard, what's going on?" She asked and felt a knot form in her stomach.
"Penny, I have some hard things to discuss with you and I need to know that you aren't going to freak out and hurt yourself."
Penny didn't know what to say to that. So she just took another sip of her wine.
Leonard sighed and pulled a folder out of his bag and handed it to her. She braced herself and opened it. As the words on the page in front of her began to sink in, she waited for the hurt and fear to overtake her. It didn't come. Instead, she just felt a little sad and numb. She also felt... relief.
"You want a divorce." It was a statement, not a question.
"I've been seeing someone for a while now and I'm ready to commit to her," he said nonchalantly.
"What?" Penny got to her feet and placed a hand against the wall to steady herself. "You're cheating on me?"
Leonard sighed again and stood as well. "Yes."
Penny's mouth dropped open in shock. How could he be so calm about this?
"Leonard! I can't beli-"
"I know about you and Sheldon."
Surely he couldn't mean...
"Yes, I know about the night you spent with him. The second night after we got married and before Sheldon ended things with Amy," Leonard confirmed.
Penny was quiet, suddenly wishing she hadn't had any wine as the nausea was getting stronger by the minute.
"Sheldon told me. I wanted to confront you, but you were sooo... vulnerable. I mean, you clearly regretted it and Sheldon insisted you had just been helping him out. He said you were both drunk and things went further than you meant."
"Leonard, I don't know what... I'm so sorry," she said, tears stinging at her eyes.
"I know, Penny. It's okay. I forgave you for that a long time ago. I thought things would get better when we got the house, but then you and Sheldon just kept getting closer..."
"We didn't sleep together! It was just that one time..." Penny interjected, feebly.
"I know, but it hurt to watch you and Sheldon have the relationship that I wanted with you. I felt like you only needed me for sex and you didn't even want it as much as before we were married."
Penny couldn't say anything, she just tried to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat.
"So when Sheldon's old assistant, Alex Jensen, interviewed to be my assistant and research partner with my new position, I hired her. I slept with her that night and in the morning... I stayed. We were together for all my symposiums, always sharing a bed, strictly a friends with benefits kind of thing. When I stopped coming home between conferences, we began doing tourists things together and fell in love."
"So the whole time we were trying to get pregnant, you were..." She broke off and covered her mouth with her hand in dismay.
"No! Oh, God no, Penny. I... broke it off after the time I found you in the kitchen holding that knife. I loved Alex, but you were my wife and I had a responsibility to make sure you were okay. More than that, we've been friends and I've loved you for a long time. Alex said she would wait as long as it took, but I didn't expect her to. I swear, Penny, if I had gotten you pregnant I would not be divorcing you. I was just... I was trying to do what you needed to get better and for a little while I thought we could save our marriage. That we could have a family and be happy," He admitted, wistfully.
"So you're divorcing me because we can't have children together?" She asked as she tried to wrap her head around all that he was telling her.
"No. I'm divorcing you because our marriage is making us both miserable. Sheldon makes you happier than I ever could. He can also give you that baby you want so badly."
Penny started shaking and wrapped her arms around herself shaking her head.
"I don't... I never... I don't know what to say," she whispered, and sat down again.
"You don't have to say anything right now, Penny. Why don't you go on to bed? I'm staying at a hotel tonight. I'll be tomorrow around two to pack my things. We can talk then, or not if you don't want to. I need to end our marriage and move on with my life." He said firmly and turned to go.
"I never intended hurt you, Penny. It's important to me that you know that."
And then he was gone.
Penny closed her eyes feeling dizzy and numb. When she opened them again she was lying in Sheldon's bed. He was sitting next to her leaning back against the headboard and reading aloud from a Star Trek novel.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked over at Sheldon curiously. He stopped reading when she moved, and his blue eyes intensely studied her face.
"Are you okay now?" He asked, sounding really worried.
"I'm fine. What happened?"
Sheldon sighed in relief and reached over to straighten her blanket and readjust her pillows.
"I'm not sure. Leonard left and I found you in the floor just staring out into space. I called my mom and she said it sounded like you were in shock and I should keep you warm," he said, continuing to fuss with the bed linens.
"Leonard wants a divorce," Penny said after a few minutes of silence.
"I know," he gestured to the file that held the divorce papers lying on the bedside table.
Sheldon left for a few minutes and returned with a mug of tea for her. She sipped at it, the heat of it warming her throat and belly.
"What do I do now?" She asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"What do you want to do?" He asked.
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, at a loss as to where her life was heading now.
The numbness wore off the next day. It was early afternoon, so Penny decided she was going to do some shoe shopping. Sheldon promised to stay at the house and 'handle Leonard'. She didn't make it to the shoe store. She didn't make it any further than Nick's, a bar she frequented when she was heavily drinking. The cocktail she ordered made her nauseated, but she ignored it and drank the whole thing. Then a cute Cajun guy had shown up and one cocktail turned into three. Suddenly Penny was feeling better than she had in years. She was laughing, flirting, and for a little while life was easy and happy.
Then Cajun guy got a little too close for comfort. His smell of cigarettes and sweat, mixed with the alcohol already churning in her gut, had her running to the bathroom.
Exhausted and slightly embarrassed, Penny left the bar as quickly as she could and tried to remember where she'd parked her car. She didn't even see the little blue Prius headed straight for her, its driver busy composing a text on their phone.
When Penny came to, sometime later, she was lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of tubes and wires. Mary Cooper was sleeping in the chair to her right.
A nurse came in and smiled when she saw Penny was awake. After checking her vitals and getting Penny some water, the nurse left to find a doctor. As she waited, Penny tried to remember what had happened to her. Dismayed, she realized she must have had quite a bit of vodka to be suffering such memory loss. She vaguely remembered a bar and throwing up in a public bathroom, but everything other than that was a big blurry haze.
A woman in a lab coat came in after a few minutes.
"Mrs. Hofstadter? I'm Dr. Drake," Penny nodded with a frown as she remembered Leonard and the divorce papers.
After rechecking her vitals and asking after symptoms, Dr. Drake informed her she had been hit by a car the previous evening. Luckily, it had been in a parking lot so the car wasn't going very fast, but Penny had been intoxicated and had hit her head pretty hard, leaving her with a slight concussion. She didn't have any broken bones, just a few scrapes and bruises.
"Other than a preliminary CT scan, we haven't run any further radiological exams so you don't need to worry about any harm being done to the fetus."
The confusion must have shown on Penny's face.
"Oh, I assumed you knew. According to your records you've been working with a fertility specialist. You are pregnant, Mrs. Hofstadter. Congratulations."
A/N: Dun, dun, duuuuun! :D
BTW- the baby has no effect on Leonard's decision. He is gone.
Okay, so I have a Sabriel Big Bang to focus on and the Thanksgiving holidays coming up. So don't expect the first chapter of Part 3 until the weekend of 12/11/15. I'm going to do my best to get ahead of things so I can go back to doing one chapter a week... fingers crossed.