Disclaimer kind of, I own Liisa, Lisel, Sam, Tish, Einstein, Leaky but no one own can own a cat so Schrodinger belongs to himself. The rest were developed and created by TBBT. My hat's off to you but I'm going to play with them for a while longer.

Ambiguity

Penny cuddled further into Leonard, her face buried in his chest already. "Why can't I get close enough", she thought. I'm where I belong. For not the first time today she wondered why she had not been right here for the last 12 years.

It wasn't guilt that was in her mind. Regret perhaps, but she had made pretty good decisions the last few years. She just never realized how great this would have and could have been. The comfort she felt was amazing.

She knew that everyday wouldn't be like today. Passion went to a longer more relaxed schedule. They were in a honeymoon period right now. A more comfortable but less intense time together would come. She just couldn't at this moment imagine being in a bed without him.

It had been that way years ago. It wasn't sex, it was togetherness. That feeling of being with, even belonging to the other person. It had only happened in her life with Leonard.

In some ways it was scary, but at this point she knew there wasn't anyone else who filled that spot. "I love you Leonard." She whispered it into his chest. His hand moved and caressed her side.

He teased her, "Thank you" She didn't take the bait, "Perfectly acceptable answer", then she pinched his chest. He was chuckling, and then got serious. How about "I'll love your forever and always?" He kissed the top of her head.

"Better", Penny whispered into his chest. "What do you want to do now?"

Leonard looked at the ceiling, wondering if that was about right now, or the future. There he goes again. Time will tell. "Let's get in that huge shower of yours. Then go out and watch Christmas movies."

Penny moved to get up. "I get to pick the first one."

It's a wonderful half a life

Leonard and Penny snuggled on the couch in front of the flat screen mounted in the wall.

"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings", came from the speakers. Penny reached over and hit the mute button on the remote. "We can watch it again, it's a marathon today?" Leonard knew it was Penny's favorite Christmas movie. They had watched that, The Santa Clause, and A Christmas Story. The light was starting to fade through the far windows.

"If you like baby, I'll snuggle up with you, but do you mind if I read while you're watching?"

"Oh that sounds good." Penny grabbed the remote, it was about to start again. Leonard moved to the bookcase and slid the book The Combined CERN Papers of Leonard L. Hoftstader PhD. He brought it back to the couch and set on the end, Penny snuggling into his right shoulder. She looked at the book, "Light reading I see." She said with a grin.

Leonard smiled and started looking at the book, "Do you know this is the first copy I've ever seen. I knew CERN put it out. Caltech has a digital copy in the library but I've never seen the actual physical book before. I never did the editing on it, CERN took care of that, I approved the final copy without ever looking at the galleys."

Penny kissed him on the cheek, "You had more important things to do then Leonard." Penny knew the book, every inch of it. Even though she couldn't really read very much of it she knew it was published late in the year Liisa had died.

Leonard smiled at her, "You're right. Beside no amount of changes would have made it win a Pulitzer though I would have called it Leonard and the Rings of Power". They both laughed. Penny started watching the movie, Leonard thumbing through his book.

About the time Clarence saved George from drowning, Leonard put the book on the coffee table. He held Penny a little closer, she snuggled in. But Leonard wasn't really watching, he was thinking.

The experiment that had him thinking, Altering the Half-life of Cesium using Helium Laser Refraction. It was the play on words It's a Wonderful Life and half-life. It was really rather silly half-life being how long it would take a radioactive material to lose half its radioactive output. It never was not radioactive it just kept taking half of the half. But it's a wonderful half- life could be describing his future and Penny's. He went ahead and let his mind wrap around both concepts. A smile crept onto he lips. He loved the way it looked in his head. The future had lots of issues, but if I could just take care of these two he would be half way there. He could start his and Penny's second half life.

Penny looked up at Leonard. The movie had ended a few minutes ago and was getting ready to restart. She saw the smile on his face, intense thought behind the eyes. His brow was wrinkled, a slight squint. She had seen Leonard like this a few times, usually sitting in the apartment when he was working on some new experiment that he wanted to do. Penny thought of this as his genius face, everything else blocked out. She liked the smile though. Whatever he had figured out it was really pleasing him. Penny just put her head back on his shoulder and waited.

A Quantitative Supposition

When he finally snapped out of it, he almost jumped.

"Welcome back sweetie", she lifted her head and kissed him. "Did you have an epiphany or were just thinking about this morning."

Leonard's smile was now That Smile. "I just realized that I'm half way through my life. That if I'm lucky I will live as many years as I have already lived. It put some things in perspective."

Penny set back and looking into his face, she could see he was excited. "Like what?"

He looked past her. She doubted if he was seeing anything but his own mind right at that moment.

"Like I don't care what happened to us 12 years ago. It was caused by and affected two people who are so different now than they were then. That their lives changed them in so many ways except in one regard, they still loved each other. Even though both had given it up there was no moving on just moving without."

"That's just one thing; I looked through that book tonight. I was my life's work, but my life is only half over. So it's really only my half-life of work. What will I do with the second half? That's where my head went. I want you to see if you want to and can do something? Look at your schedule. I want you to come to Europe with me on the week starting Jan 25th to get Lisel and meet Horst and Lena."

Penny just sat there a minute. Leonard had made a jump. She didn't have to check her schedule. Anything on those dates would just have to be moved or missed.

Penny kissed him, excited now. "I'll go, I don't need to check. I'll work out what ever has to be done. What prompted this?"

Leonard looked at her. "The realization that though I regret losing you in the first half of my life, I have the second half to never lose you again"

She held him close. She knew where his mind had went. He had to mix science with his emotions to get there. She'd figured out she wasn't going to ever lose Leonard ever again no matter what 36 hours ago. Who's the emotional intelligence genius?

Comfort Zone

Penny reached over and picked up the book of Leonard's papers. "Do ever regret not doing this kind of work anymore?"

"I have until a few minutes ago. You know how I could be. I would work day and night on an experiment protocol. All night sessions in the lab, I was even more driven at CERN. I would be there for days getting ready for collider run." I decided I had to give it up. Lisel was more important. I needed to be with her and be her father. She would never need a hugging machine."

Leonard turned toward her.

"I have an idea how we should spend the rest of our evening. If you can leave the dogs by themselves tonight, we could go get Chinese food and head back to the apartment. Eat it out of the cartons on the coffee table. Make out in Sheldon's spot, and spend the night there."

"Like the old days? The dogs will be fine. They have a dog door and run on the side of the house. My housekeeper will be here in the morning. Then my PA will be here at 11:00. They love her and she'll have a light day without me around. Do you have anything tomorrow?"

"Nope, Christmas break until the 6th.

Penny started to get up from the couch. "Okay then, let me get a few things including something sexy for you. What should we do tomorrow?"

Penny had that sexy slightly wicked smile on her face.

Leonard felt his breath catch. "I say we stay in bed all day. Then we cook a lovely leg of lamb together for dinner. I break out the best wine I have and we'll do some tasting. Then we'll see if you can kick my butt at chess, unless something else comes up."

Another suggestive look came up on Penny's face. "Oh something will come up even after I destroy you at chess."

Penny got up and headed for the left hallway.

Leonard laughed, "Isn't your bedroom that way?"

She turned and gave him a wicked grin, "Yeah but my wardrobe and shoe room is on this side not enough room over there.

For some reason I really like this line: "there was no moving on just moving without." It seems to live in my memory somehow.

Hi to BigFan, Ms. Snarky, Little Sis and Garth. I hope you enjoy. There is no end in sight at the moment to many ways to go. Let's see if I can keep this pace up for a little while anyway. Spoiler for the next chapter, a discussion of the fact that they have been having unprotected sex for two days and why it hasn't come up before.

PS it's snowing here in Oregon, If I get a snow day tomorrow so I can stay home with my daughter you might get two chapters.

Remember if in doubt drink about it.