Oh snap! Twice in one night.
But I won't be able to update again until next week.
I don't own the characters. Except for Alex.
Snoogans and Snoochie Boochies!
Penny flinched as her OBGYN rubbed the clear goo over her abdomen. It was her and Sheldon's first trip to see Penny's gyno, now OBGYN since she found out she was pregnant.
The doctor placed the sonogram monitor on the goo and moved around until she found what she was looking for. "I'd say, based on what you filled out on your paperwork, and what I'm seeing here, you're about eight weeks."
Penny smiled at Sheldon, who was holding her hand (Although the public display of affection was not his cup of tea, he'd agreed because she'd been so nervous.). They both looked back to the monitor and watched as the doctor took a freeze frame of what was on the screen, and printed it out.
"Come back and see me in a month. We should be able to detect a heart beat then, okay?" the doctor smiled to them, handed them their picture, pointed out the baby, and left them to let Penny put her clothes back on.
Sheldon held the picture while Penny dressed and studied it.
"Penny," he said, sounding worried. "I lost him." Sheldon couldn't pick out from the picture any longer where the doctor had showed them Alex was.
Penny zipped up her jeans, and went to his side. She looked at the picture for a moment, and then pointed to a spot. "There he is." she said , and kissed him on the cheek before putting her shoes back on.
"Look, it's Alex." Sheldon said, holding out the sonogram picture to Leonard, Howard and Raj. The guys took the picture and passed it between the three of them, admiring Sheldon's "handy work" as they stared at the black and while photo.
"I don't see him." Howard said, and Raj nodded.
"Don't be ridiculous." Sheldon said. He moved so he was standing behind his three friends and pointed towards the picture. "He's right…" he started to say, but froze. "Penny!" he called, and she came over from the kitchen where she'd been making dinner.
"He's right there sweetie." she said, pointing to the little peanut shape in the middle of the photo.
"Ah…" the four men said at once. Leonard looked to Sheldon, puzzled that his friend, this genius, couldn't seem to remember where his own son was on a sonogram picture. He asked him, and the two other friends and Penny all looked to Sheldon. He merely shrugged, but his eye and cheek twitched.
"It's okay sweetie." Penny said as she came back around and kissed his cheek. She could tell. She knew. He was scared. He hadn't told anyone, not even her, that that photo of their son had been his undoing. He'd managed to stay calm (for the most part) through all of this. Through most of Alex's inhabitance at the apartment, through exploring a new relationship with Penny, through branching out in ways he never thought he needed or wanted. He'd been his normal Sheldon self.
But the moment he saw the little fetus on that screen, the reality of everything hit him. It took everything in him not to faint, as he was prone to doing in front of crowds. But there was no crowd. This was one tiny, eight week old fetus that nearly brought him to his knees.
So now, when he looked at that photo, while proud (which he discovered was an interesting feeling over the current situation) it reminded him of how real this situation was, how everything would be changing. How there would be dirty diapers and vomit and snot nosed kids carrying who knows what kind of bacteria and germs and illnesses. He'd look at that picture, and see nothing, blinded by his fear. It just looked like black and white splotches.
"Good night, Sheldon." Penny said as she stretched out on her back. A position Sheldon hated her sleeping in because she was prone to snore when laying like that.
"Good night, Penny." he said, and then did something new. He pulled the blanket back and leaned down over her stomach. "Good night, Alex." he whispered, and placed a gentle kiss just below her belly button. He pulled the blanket back over Penny and laid on his side, facing her. She turned to her side to face him.
"What was that?" she asked.
Sheldon took her question as one of confusion, as if she hadn't noticed what he'd done or why. "While I realize that it is far to early for Alex to have developed ears or even the ability to comprehend what I said, I figured that the gesture was warranted as he is alive and exists here in this room, even though his existence centers around being incased in your uterus…"
Penny didn't let him finish. She wasn't confused about what he'd done, she'd just been shocked by it. Sure, he'd gotten a bit father figury when Alex had been with them a few months back, but what he'd done now… well, it was one of the sweetest, sexiest things she'd ever seen her entire life.
She took Sheldon by surprise, practically jumping on him as she knocked him on his back, straddling him, and smothering his lips with hers.
"Penny, what's gotten in to you?" Sheldon asked between kisses.
"I love you. So much." she told him.
Penny only missed one thing from her old life. She didn't miss going out dancing and drinking. She didn't miss living on her own. She didn't miss her old apartment. But now that she was pregnant, she missed one thing, and one thing only.
She inhaled as she sat at the island in 4B. Leonard had just poured them each a cup of coffee.
"Does Sheldon know you're here?" he asked. She shook her head. He gave her that goofy grin he had. Where he's all teeth, and his eyes squint shut.
He enjoyed the time that they had together each morning. He knew that their time was limited with Alex on the way. The group's lives were all changing, so he'd take what he could get, when he could, by any means necessary.
"Have you told him that you've been coming over?" Leonard asked her. Again, she shook her head as she took the cup in her hands, raising it to her lips, but not drinking. Only smelling.
She sat the mug back down on the counter, but kept her hands on it, letting the warmth of the hot coffee warm her through the mug.
"I make sure I'm home before he's up. And I appreciate you waking up early for me." she smiled, raising the cup back to her nose.
Leonard shrugged. "What are friends for?" he told her. They both had a good laugh at that.
When Penny had finished at 4B, she crept her way back in to 4A. She shut the door and started to turn around when she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of Sheldon.
"Where have you been?" he asked her as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"Oh I just went for a walk. I was restless." she told him. She started to head back towards him, towards the hall, but he stopped her and pulled her to him for a good morning kiss.
And that's when he smelled it.
"Did you drink coffee?" he asked her, his eyebrow quirking. He always reminded her of Spock when he did that.
"Of course not." she told him, lowering her head, trying to move past him. Curses! She was caught!
"Penny, don't lie to me. I can smell it." he told her, following her back to their bedroom. "Need I remind you the dangers of caffeine consumption during gestation…"
"No Sheldon, you don't have to remind me. I didn't drink any coffee, I promise." she said as she laid back down in bed. Drat, she'd never be able to sneak out again.
"But I smelled it. Penny, I don't think you're taking this very seriously." he told her, a bit exasperated at her blatant disregard for their unborn child.
"Oh for God's sake Sheldon, I was over at Leonard's! I've been over there every morning for two weeks now. He pours me a cup, and then…" Oh God, why was she so embarrassed over this?
"And then?" Sheldon urged her to finish her statement.
"I smell it." she said, laughing at the absurdity now that she'd said it out loud. The waste of a perfectly good cup of coffee so she could sit there and smell it for thirty minutes each morning. The fact that she got up before six a.m., and the fact that Leonard got up with her.
Leonard asked her why she didn't just do this at her place, but she told him having coffee in 4A would just be to tempting. If she came over to 4B to smell it, he could monitor her, and she could leave it when she was done, and it wouldn't be staring her in the face all day.
"You smell it?" Sheldon asked, a bit disbelieving.
"Yes. I go over to Leonard's, I wake him up at the butt crack of dawn, I make him start a pot of coffee, and then he pours me a cup and I sit there and I smell it."
Sheldon watched her for a moment more before sitting next to her on the bed and stared to sing her 'Soft Kitty'. She just looked at him, a bafflement written all over her face. When he'd finished singing, she asked him why he'd sang, because she wasn't sick.
"Withdrawal is a kind of sick." he told her, and she laughed.
Quick A/N: The coffee tale was inspired by a coffee addicted friend at work, who, when she became pregnant, used to pour herself a cup every day, and make it like she'd drink it with sugar and milk, and then just hold it and smell it.