A/N: Short but I wanted to get the players sorted out a bit more. Hope you'll comment if you feel up to it.

Reparata

Moving On – Chapter 5
The Arbor
Princeton, New Jersey
1:00pm

Dr. Beverly Hofstadter was just about to order her lunch when her daughter-in-law breezed in, smiling at the wait staff and waving to Beverly. Penny seemed to turn heads since filing for her divorce but Beverly chalked it up to a return to her bubbly personality and the loss of all that 'heartache fat' she'd put on.

"Hey, Bev, have you ordered yet?" She hung her purse over the back of her chair and seated herself, not waiting for the waiter. It was Tuesday afternoon.

"No, but I was just about to when you made your appearance. You seem unusually cheerful. I take it things with my son are progressing nicely and all according to plan?"

"Yes, Beverly, just as you figured, he's hunkered down figuring I'll eventually come to my senses. He's right, though. I have come to a few decisions about my life."

"I spoke with Sheldon last week – or rather we chatted and then I began asking questions that he would much rather I didn't and he severed the Skype call."

Penny's face blossomed into a smile but then lost it when she saw how upset her soon to be ex-mother-in-law appeared. She reached across the table and held her hand and leaned in.

"What happened this time? I thought you two had mended fences?" She wanted to know everything about her friend and his life in Argentina. Mostly she wanted to know when he was going back to Pasadena. So much of her plan depended on his schedules.

"He resigned from CalTech and has accepted a permanent position with the University in Buenos Aires, something I never thought he'd do but then again he constantly surprises me."

She saw the look on Penny's face and took the plunge.

"You should call him on Skype, Penny, and tell him about the divorce. He's your friend and I know you both have a lot of catching up to do."

"Not any more, Bev. I don't know Sheldon any more. Ever since the going away party for the Wolowitz's, things have been brittle between us. I don't blame him, really, I don't. We just drifted apart after I became engaged."

Penny paused and Beverly saw the pain on her face but waited, knowing as a therapist, silence frequently led to enlightenment.

Penny looked up and her eyes were tear-filled. "When he broke up with Amy I called him and bitched him out and he just listened and when I asked him how he could do something like that to someone who loved him – " she gulped down tears – "and he said "you did," and then he hung up. He didn't even come to my wedding…"

"Well, he's settled into things at the University and seems to have found someone who challenges him on a social and academic level. You know he's going to the South Pole to search for his Holy Grail – "

"The South Pole? Sheldon hates the cold. He'll freeze to death all alone down there without his friends." Consciously or unconsciously, she ignored Beverly's comments about the 'someone who challenged him'.

"Penny, I never said he was going alone, did I?"

"What do you mean, Beverly? Of course he'd have people with him, other members of the expedition, right?"

"I pushed him for information and he clammed up, deflected, changed the subject and finally just told me that his 'love life' was none of my 'damned business' and ended the call."

Beverly should have seen it coming but she'd been looking in the wrong direction so when Penny started quietly crying, she was caught flat-footed.

"Oh, dear, you have feelings for Sheldon and you're just finally admitting it, even to yourself. You never should have let Leonard pressure you into getting married, Penny. You should have told him the truth and then confronted Sheldon with the truth – you were in love with him."

"Not 'were', 'am', and now it's too late to do anything about it!"

Beverly took out a leather notepad and scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it across the table to Penny. "Here. Call him. It's his Skype address. I don't know if it's too late and neither do you – and you won't unless you call him."

Dr. Juliana Parea's Apartment
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sheldon had set up his laptop and was using a dummy cord to connect to her computer and transfer some files about the expedition when she called from the kitchen.

"Shel? I need a strong man in here to open a jar. Know anyone you could recommend?" She was cooking dinner for the both of them and then they were going to an orientation about living and surviving in Antarctica.

She was struggling with a jar of some kind of sauce. "Here, you twist the top off while I hold the jar."

Sheldon twisted the lid and it came off easier than either of them had expected and Juliana struggled to maintain a grip on the twisting jar and somehow it tipped over, spilling sauce all down the front on both of them.

"Oh, Shel, I'm so sorry! She bent to retrieve the unbroken glass container and so did he and they bumped heads and he grabbed her around the upper arms to keep her from slipping since she was dazed by the cranial collision.

At 5'9", she was taller than any girl Sheldon had known, except for his sister who was nearly as tall as he was. She stared into his blue eyes and then looked at his lips and leaned up and kissed him.

He stiffened for a moment but then surprising even himself, he leaned into the kiss, putting his arms around her waist as she put one hand on his shoulder and the other around the nape of his neck, both ignoring the sauce trapped between them.

An eternity later, she straightened, still keeping her hands where they were. "I've wanted you to do that for so very long, Shel. I got tired of waiting."

In a soft voice she had to strain to hear, he said, "We have some kind of sauce layered between us and I don't have a change of clothes. Whatever shall we do?"

She toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck and said, "I suppose we'll have to take off these clothes."

His eyes widened, misinterpreting her words and he stammered something about social protocols and how he couldn't take a bus or cab back to his apartment looking like an appetizer.

She laughed and ran her thumb over is lower lip, wanting nothing more than to tease it and run her tongue across it but even though his pupils were dilated and his breathing uneven, Juliana knew that he wasn't ready for the intimacy she craved.

"I'll hurry and shower while you clean up this mess you made and then while you shower, I'll put your clothes in the washer. That sounds fair to me, no?"

"To you, perhaps, but to me? What am I to wear while my clothes are being washed and then tumble dried? I'm not wearing one of your pink frilly robes like Jack Lemon in 'Some Like It Hot', nor am I parading around in my underwear."

"I have a robe for you, silly. And it's a man's robe but you do not need to worry, Shel. He left it here a long time ago."

It was her ex-fiance's from when he visited a long time ago and he'd forgotten it. It had been ages since someone other than her had been in her shower. She liked the idea. And she liked the sudden look of jealousy that rippled across his face but quickly disappeared.

"That is acceptable, Jules." He still had his hands on her waist and she giggled and gently removed them. "I'll be quick and save you some hot water."

Juliana walked out of the bathroom wearing a bulky terrycloth robe that had been her mother's and dumped Sheldon's stained clothes into the washing machine and started it. She was surprised to see that Sheldon had, indeed, cleaned up the mess and from her vantage point, it appeared he'd even quickly mopped her kitchen floor. 'It's nice to have a man around the house who's not afraid to do women's work.'

She was toweling her hair when Sheldon's Skype program came up and indicated an incoming video call. She sat down in front of his laptop and accepted the video call.

Hofstadter Residence
Princeton, NJ

"Hello, Sheldon is in the shower and I'm sure he'll just be a few moments. I'm Jules – Dr. Juliana Parea, and you are?"

"I'm Penny Hofstadter and…I, ah, seem to have caught him at a bad moment. I'll just – "

Sheldon's voice was heard in background asking where she'd hidden his bathrobe and Jules laughed and smiled and said, "I hung it on a hook on the bathroom door. Isn't Observation a part of the Scientific Method?"

She turned back to Penny's image and stopped. There was such pain on her face for just an instant before she schooled her features.

"He'll be right out, Mrs. Hofstadter. Please hold on while I tell him you're waiting. We're leaving shortly for the Antarctic and I'm sure he'll want to tell you all about our preparations. Un momentito, por favor…" and she stood and left Penny's field of vision but not before Penny saw enough to know that the woman was quite naked under her robe.

She heard Sheldon's answer to the woman's comment about her waiting and when she asked who she was, he answered, "Just a friend who married my roommate, Leonard. I'll be brief and then we can get back to more important things."

He meant dinner and then their orientation but Penny fixated on 'just a friend' and acted out of sheer panic. 'Oh God, they're lovers!'

She slammed the lid of her laptop shut, disconnecting the call.

'Well, I guess I know now. I'm too late.' She hugged herself and got up to open a bottle of wine and rethink her plans. Going back to Pasadena wasn't going to do more than stir up old memories best left buried.

Sheldon saw that Penny had ended the Skype call or that something had interrupted the signal. He shrugged his shoulders and then went to dress.

It could be that important if she hadn't called back. He hoped that Leonard and Penny would be happy and that his own misgivings about the future of their marriage would prove groundless.

'They do say that the third time's the charm. I do hope Leonard doesn't do anything to jeopardize his marriage. After all, he did get the girl after all.'

He glanced at Jules and let a small smile break out. "I should dress and then I think we'll grab something light on our way to our orientation."

"No, Shel. I have something else in mind." She dropped her robe and took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom.