A/N: Meaningless sex? Oy, reader, you have got to get out more.

Please note flashback segments.

Thanks for the read. Laniki – no review is too long – if I agree with its contents.

Chapter 7

She waited six long hours before making a call to one of her best friends in Pasadena, Bernadette. Even though she'd married Howard and seemed to be thoroughly in love, the marriage had ended in divorce and Bernie had moved into an apartment far, far away from Howard's mother who was the root cause of the divorce.

Howard had not taken it well and moved into an apartment far, far away from his mother who he believed had sabotaged his marriage. His attempts to reconcile with Bernadette were met with stony indifference. She'd made a mistake and wasn't about to repeat it. The next time she got involved with someone, she had bitched to Penny at work, he would be the precise antithesis of Howard Joel Wolowitz.

Penny was pacing back and forth in her hotel room. She needed intel on what was happening back in Pasadena and Bernadette, sweet, sweet Bernadette, knew more about who was doing whom than anyone she knew. She glanced at the clock and scrolled down her contact list and dialed Bernadette's cell.

'This is Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski. I cannot come to the phone. Please leave a message. Oh, and if this is Howard's mother – I hope you fall and can't get up and you're set upon by ants and the only thing they find days later is your hollow bones, you BITCH!'

'Wow,' Penny thought, 'When she ends a marriage, she drives a stake through its heart.'

"Bernadette, hi, this is Penny and I wondered if you had a few minutes to spare, you might give me a call? I'm coming home for a while and I thought I'd move back in with Sheldon but he's…please call me back, Bernie, I made a terrible mistake and I need your help!" She put just the right amount of shakiness in her voice and sniffled strategically to garner sympathy.

She thought about calling Leonard but not only was he engaged to Sheldon's assistant, he blamed Penny for the Cooper-Drummond Singularity and for Sheldon's breakdown. Had she known that Sheldon had been hospitalized, she'd have chucked Broadway in a New York minute and been back by his side.

'No, I wouldn't have. I would have stuck to my guns and written Pasadena off as a steppingstone out of failure and never looked back. I was focused on my dreams just as he had been focused on his Nobel Prize. How was I to know he tried to…'

She shook her head as if to knock the thoughts out of her head. Missy's hysterical voicemail had gone unanswered because she'd been too busy with Kermit (No, damn it, KEVIN) to listen to her voicemails and when she finally had, it was too late.

The damage was done. Another bridge burned.

Flashback: a few days after Penny dumped Sheldon

He wasn't answering his cell and he hadn't shown up for work. Leonard and Leslie were involved in a critical experiment and the timing was all wrong for him to leave so he called Bernadette and asked her to check up on Sheldon. Leslie was already complaining about how 'Dr. Dumbass was screwing things up' and he wasn't even there.

"Leonard, he said he was going into work yesterday and I suggested that he stay home for a few days and get centered before going back to work. Maybe that's what he's doing. His cell is probably off because…because he doesn't want us intruding on him. You know how private he is about things. Besides, it's nearly midnight and you know how anal he is about his 'REM cycle'."

"He wouldn't turn off his phone, not now, not when Penny might be calling to beg him to take her back. You know how impulsive and irresponsible she can be and so does Sheldon. I'll bet – "

"I'll go now, Leonard. You're wrong. You didn't see her face when she talked about leaving. She said he was suffocating her…"

"Call me when you see him and tell him…tell him we're here for him. Make sure he knows to call if he just wants to talk or – "

"Leaving now. Bye." Bernadette pulled on sweats over her pajamas and rushed out of her apartment while pulling on a coat. It was raining and she ran to her car as fast as her little legs would carry her, cursing the weather man who predicted sunny skies and warm temperatures. It had been raining all day.

She pulled up into the driveway and ran up to the front door and rang the bell - twelve times in all - before she tried her cell phone and put her ear to the door and listened for his cell to ring. There. She heard it.

She pounded on the door, calling out his name but there was no answer. Bernadette darted around the side of the house to the gated garden entrance and rushed into the backyard and screamed.

Sheldon was lying face down in the grass in the rain. She ran over to him and rolled him over onto his back. His skin was ice cold and his lips had a bluish tinge to them. There was an empty bottle of vodka lying beside him and one more on the floor of the covered patio under the small table.

She fumbled with her cell phone in the cold rain and dialed 9-1-1.

Pasadena General Hospital
Emergency Room

Some kind soul had given her a blanket to wrap up in and a pair of scrubs to wear. She had been soaked to the skin and shivering. A nurse came out and handed her a clipboard with an admission form on it.

"Ms. Drummond, if you wouldn't mind filling this out as emergency contact, I'd appreciate it. He's being admitted and a doctor will be with you shortly to bring you up to date on his condition and treatment."

"I'm not – "

"His blood alcohol level is – well, if you hadn't found him and called for an ambulance when you did, between exposure and respiratory depression, he'd be on a slab in the morgue by morning."

The nurse hated dealing with drunks who drank until they passed out. At least this one hadn't been driving. She felt sorry for his girlfriend. She seemed nice.

"I'm not Penny Drummond. She's in New York City. I'm just a friend, Dr. Rostenkowski."

The nurse snatched the clipboard out of Bernadette's hand and glanced at the clock. "I'm sorry. You're not family and I should have asked if you were Penny Drummond before giving out privileged information. Do you have Ms. Drummond's cell phone number?"

The same nurse came back a few minutes later and apologized for her rudeness. "I just got a lesson in New York manners. The man who answered her phone said to call back, it was 4 o'clock in the morning. Can you please complete this?"

A harried looking doctor walked out into the ER waiting room and spotted Bernadette and motioned for her to follow him. She had been the only one in the waiting room.

"Dr. Cooper is suffering from acute alcohol poisoning as well as the effects of exposure. We've put him on O2 and we're running IV's of electrolytes and glucose to aid the liver in metabolizing it. I'm guessing here, but has he had some emotional loss or – "

"His girlfriend cleaned out his bank account and left him for New York. She's the star of a hemorrhoid commercial and thinks she's a diva. Yeah, he was…crushed and I thought he was okay and so I left him alone but then…"

"There, there…you couldn't have known he'd drink himself into the hospital. Is he normally a heavy drinker?"

Leonard and Winkle, still in lab clothes, showed up a bit later with Raj in tow shortly thereafter and Bernadette immediately grabbed Leslie and pulled her aside.

"One 'dumbass' outta you and I'll kick your ass so hard you won't be able to pee sitting down for a week! He doesn't need your shit, Winkle," she eyed Leonard and Raj, "Or anyone else's either. I shouldn't have left him alone. He could have died…"

Leonard called Missy since he knew the last thing Sheldon needed was Mary Cooper flying in and going all prayer-circle-pious on him.

He woke her up but she was instantly awake and even before Leonard could relay any of the details she said, "What's wrong with Shelly? Why isn't Penny calling me? Are they both hurt or…"

Leonard blurted it all out and listened for a few moments and then said, "Let me know your flight number and I'll pick you up. No, she wouldn't take the hospital's call." There was a long pause and then Leonard said, "Good bye, Missy."

"Missy's calling Penny and then flying here tomorrow…or today, I mean. I don't think Penny's her favorite person right now. I think Texas is 'gonna open a can of whoop ass on Nebraska'. She said she knew something was wrong – some weird twin thing…"

Bernadette sat down and pulled the blanket tighter around her. 'I shouldn't have just left him. I know how I felt after Howie and I split up. I should have stayed with him…'

End flashback