Penny trudged wearily up the stairs after another long waitressing shift. As she reached the landing of the fourth floor, she stopped and dug around in her purse for her keys. The building was usually quiet for this hour of night, so that was why she could faintly hear some sound coming from Sheldon's apartment. She crept closer and pressed her ear to the door. After a few moments, she recognized the sound effects of a video game. Grinning, she thought to herself that Sheldon must have moved back into his own place. Hopefully, this was a good sign. She knocked on the door, paused, and then knocked three times.

"Sheldon?" she called. She repeated this pattern two more times, just like he loved to do, but to no avail. In fact, as she listened intently, she realized that she no longer heard the video game. Either he had muted it, or he had turned it off and gone to bed. With a huff of frustration, she went back to her apartment alone.

The next morning as she was getting ready for work, she heard a knock at her front door. She raced to the door and looked out of the peephole. If she was honest with herself, she'd been hoping it was Sheldon at her door, even though she had no reason to think he would seek her out. Instead, she saw a middle-aged man in a business suit, holding an envelope. She opened the door cautiously.

"Are you Penelope Ann Cooper?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied warily.

He handed her the envelope. "This is official notice that you've been served."

She reached out a hand to the door frame to steady herself, wondering if she was being sued. "What's in the envelope?" she faltered.

The man had already reached the head of the stairs, but he turned and looked at her with a sympathetic expression. "I work for a divorce attorney," he answered before quickly disappearing down the stairs.

Penny took the envelope inside and stared at it a long time before she finally opened it with trembling hands. The document was several pages long, but at the top was written, "Petition of Dissolution of Marriage". She flipped through the paperwork with growing despair. One simple phrase caught her attention. A box was checked off next to the words "unsound mind". At first, she thought Sheldon might be accusing her of being crazy. As she worked through the rest of the unfamiliar words, she realized he was trying to get their marriage annulled by claiming that, while intoxicated, neither of them had been in their right minds when they got married. It was hard to argue with that when it had taken weeks of therapy for her to remember why she had accepted his proposal.

She had to talk to him. It had been well over a week since she'd seen him. She suspected that he was so hurt that he could only deal with his pain by shutting her out of his life. But she refused to give up, so she grabbed her phone. First, she called in sick to work, then she camped out in the hallway with her back against his front door. He had to come home eventually, right? Just to be sure, she sent Leonard a text and confirmed that he was giving Sheldon a ride home as usual.

She waited for hours until he finally appeared, and the moment he laid eyes on her, he looked as though he might turn around and flee. "Wait, please. We have to talk." She got to her feet and held out the divorce papers. "I don't want this to be over. I… I love you."

His eyes flicked quickly downward, taking in the red t-shirt she wore with its encircled lightning bolt.

For a moment, something flashed in his eyes, but then he shook his head. "I gave you ample time to exhibit proof of an emotional attachment to me, but you did not. And no, I don't consider physical affection to be adequate proof, since I know you are capable of having coitus with men for whom you don't feel any connection beyond a temporary lust."

"I cleaned my apartment," she volunteered in a small voice. He raised one eyebrow, a skeptical expression on his face. "No, I did; I swear. You can come look. And I signed up to take an introductory level physics course… and I got this for you, too." She held out a brightly wrapped package.

"What is it?" he asked, regarding the box as if it was a poisonous snake.

"It's a limited edition Batman statue thing… I forget exactly what it is, but Stuart can tell you. He's the one who sold it to me."

His gaze lingered on the box for a moment, but then he stepped back and actually put his hands behind his back.

"I don't want it," he said in a strained voice. "I never asked you to do any of those things. That wasn't what I wanted from you."

She didn't know what to say. Suddenly, the fact that she had cleaned her apartment and signed up for a basic physics course didn't seem to be nearly enough. He was right, again. For the past six months, he had only asked her for one thing. "All right. I'll wear the ring. I'll stay."

He looked at her, and for a moment, she saw all the raw pain and fear that he was struggling to hide. "No. It's too late."

"Babe, please… I know I upset you, but you can't just give up on us." A thought struck her. "I have an idea. Can I come back again in an hour or so? I know you still have feelings for me, so please give me a chance to prove that I mean what I say."

He frowned, looking doubtful. "I doubt there is anything you could say or do that would make me change my mind. Still, I suppose it can't hurt… any more than you already have hurt me," he added sourly.

She studied his face, wanting desperately to erase the pain she saw there. "I'll make it up to you. I know you don't believe me yet, but you will."

His head jerked once, down and then up again. Taking that as assent, Penny raced down the stairs.

The brawny man eyed her doubtfully. "Ya sure about this?"

"Yup, I'm sure."

"You're the customer; I'll do anything you want. But if ya change your mind, don't blame me."

"Sheldon is my husband," Penny replied firmly.

"Sister, that don't mean it's gonna last."

"It will… this time. This time, I'm going to fight for him."

With a shake of his head, he accepted the cash Penny held out to him. Taking a deep breath, she undid the top few buttons of her shirt. "Right here," she said, pointing. "I want it right here."

Sheldon paced in his apartment. All attempts to distract his mind from what Penny might be doing had failed. For more than a week, he'd tried his best to put her out of his mind. He had very sternly told himself that he'd been a fool, that trying to salvage his marriage to Penny had been a mistake. He knew about her fear of commitment, but he'd been a self-deluded idiot to think that he, of all people, could get her to overcome it. That was why he convinced himself that the only way to get over her was to make a clean break. Intending to find a new place to live, he'd come back to his apartment the previous night to start packing. Instead, he'd been overwhelmed with memories of the time they'd spent together. He'd turned to a particularly difficult level in one of his favorite video games in an effort to distract himself, and that was when she had knocked on his door. Like a coward, he'd quickly turned the game off and fled to the safety of his room.

Suddenly, Penny burst through his door, startling him out of his reverie. She was breathless and panting. "Sorry, I just… ran up all… those stairs," she gasped. She put a hand against her chest and then winced.

He felt a stab of alarm. "Are you experiencing cardiac arrhythmia?" he asked.

"Arrhythmia… crap, that's another word I'll have to learn," she muttered under her breath. "No, I'm fine," she said aloud. "Just a little sore."

He frowned. "If running up four flights of steps is somehow supposed to convince me that you have feelings for me-"

"No. No, that's not it. I have something to show you." She glanced at him, giving him a small smile though her eyebrows drew together. Then she started unbuttoning her shirt.

He backed away, hurt and confusion warring in his mind. If she thought sex was going to somehow fix their relationship, she was even more mistaken. Then something shiny caught his eye. Penny drew down the neck of her blouse, revealing a glossy red mark on her chest.

"I think you're gonna have to come closer to read it," she said shyly.

Swallowing hard, he took a few steps toward her. "What is it?" he asked, but he was already starting to understand. Underneath a layer of what looked like plastic wrap was a tattoo. Penny had gotten a red heart emblazoned on the left side of her chest, just above where her actual heart was. There were letters in a graceful script across it, and he came to a standstill as the word came into focus.

His head snapped up. "That's my name."

"Yup," she said. One side of her mouth quirked up in a tiny smile. "It's permanent… forever. It's going to be a part of me for the rest of my life."

He swallowed hard, lifted a hand as if to touch the tattoo, and then pulled his hand away. "Does it hurt?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yup, but it was worth it. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I didn't understand how or why you could just decide you wanted to stay married to me. But now I know: you were all in, from the moment you found out. You weren't trying to protect yourself; maybe you didn't even know how… but I was. I was trying to leave myself a way out, and you didn't." She gestured at her chest. "So there's no way out of this. I wanted to show you that I'm not going to be dating anyone else. I'm not going to be with anyone else. It's you or no one. It seems right that we got married in Vegas because I'm betting everything on you." She took a step closer and reached for his hand. "I want to be your wife," she said gently. "I will proudly wear that ring you bought me, or any other ring. We can have another wedding with all our friends and family, and I'll promise to love you forever in front of all of them. I'll give up the lease on my apartment, and we can move in together. We'll argue about the furniture and knick-knacks, and we'll kiss and make up. We'll see each other every day and sleep in the same bed every night - I hope - and maybe someday we'll have super-smart kids who try to buy yellowcake uranium and fry their sister's hamster in a homemade CAT scanner. And we'll grow old together because there's no one in the world I'd rather be with."

Sheldon's face had been blank with shock as she began speaking, but his expression softened. As she wound to a halt, he gave her a slight smile. "That sounded like a marriage proposal. I'm a traditionalist. I think the man should propose, but since we know I did that the first time, then... yes, I accept." A broad, lopsided grin spread across his face.

Penny shrieked in excitement and flung herself into his arms. She kissed him almost frantically. "I love you, babe," she whispered. Then she laughed. "It all seems so simple now. I love you. All I ever wanted was for you to be a part of my life forever… and now you are."

Sheldon rested his forehead on hers. "Tell me again," he ordered in a low voice. "Tell me you're going to be my wife."

She grinned at him. "I already am."

Normally, Sheldon was extremely serious, but he allowed a soft, genuine smile to spread over his face. "I believe I have a promise to fulfill to you. I said that if it would bind you to me, I would make love to you over and over again."

The shocked looked on her face morphed into delight. Then her face fell. "I can't wait to be with you, but I want your first time to be special. I'm still wearing my work uniform," she said, pulling at it with a grimace. "I didn't shave my legs this morning. I don't even remember if I put on a matching bra and underwear."

"Penny… my love," he said quietly, interrupting her panicked rambling. "I don't care about any of those things. All I want is you."

She gasped, and then tears began to glisten in her eyes. "All right," she whispered, almost shyly.

"I do have one request," he began hesitantly. She watched in astonishment as two faint spots of pink appeared on his cheeks.

"Anything, babe."

The color in his face deepened. "Will you wear the ring I bought you? I'd like to see you wearing that... and nothing else," he added, flushing a darker shade.

Her eyes lit up, and she took his hand, pulling him toward her. "You've been thinking about this," she purred. She rose up on her tiptoes and whispered, "Whatever you want. I'm yours… always." Then he tugged on her hand and led her back to the bedroom.