And it's new chapter time! Hope you enjoy this...it relates to some of the issues that we've seen since the start of the fic, but shows how both those issues, and stress coming from them and other problems, can affect people as a whole. Hope you enjoy it.
Leonard entered the office and immediately his eyes fell on the little girl sitting on one of the small plastic stools. "Savannah," he said, "what did you do?"
"Are you Dr. Hofstadter?" asked a woman from behind the desk. "Carrie Cicala."
"I am," Leonard said, shaking her hand and then putting his hands on the desk. "What happened?" He looked back at Savannah, who was staring at the ground.
"Your daughter appears to be the mastermind of a prank," Cicala said, "that involved using desks to pin the substitute teacher in a corner."
Leonard's eyebrows shot up, and he looked over at his daughter again. "Savannah?" She mumbled something that he couldn't understand. "Savannah!"
"It was just a Cattle Drive," she protested. "Mommy used to do it."
Mommy used to smoke pot, too, are you going to try that next? Leonard almost snapped. As tired as he was, as worried as he was about Penny, and as upsetting as it was to find that his daughter was quickly becoming a 'problem child', he knew that that wasn't the best course of action. "We'll talk about this when we get home, but you are so grounded, Missy," he told her sternly.
"She is also suspended for one day," said Cicala. "With the understanding that next time it will be more."
"Suspended?" Leonard said incredulously, "for a prank in which no one got hurt? You're not going to tell me that the substitute had a problem getting away from them. Those desks are pint sized."
"Nevertheless, Dr. Hofstadter, we have rules in this school, and if your daughter is going to break them, she has to face the consequences. Isn't that what happens at home?"
"Of course it's what happens at home," Leonard said. "We don't just let them run wild, you know."
"Still," Cicala said, "oftentimes misbehaving at school is a result of a problem at home. Is it possible that your daughter doesn't feel secure in her home environment?"
"Why wouldn't she?" Leonard said. "She's got two loving parents and a little sister, and before you start telling me she's jealous of Nevada, she was acting out in school before the baby was even born!"
Leonard blinked after finishing his sentence, realizing that didn't necessarily make the situation any better.
"Well, it says here that you and her mother are not married." Cicala pointed to their differing last names and marital status on the paperwork. "Could that be causing her any distress?"
"I don't see how it can cause her stress if we're living together," Leonard said. "For all intents and purposes, we are married. We just don't have the piece of paper. I didn't realize no piece of paper could cause a freaking four year old so much stress."
"Dr. Hof…hold on a moment please," Cicala said when the door to the office opened and a woman with a little boy walked in. "Hello, Mrs. Darley, I'll be with you and Max in a minute."
Leonard smiled as Max ran over to Savannah, wondering if the two were friends – and partly hoping he had been involved in this so – called "Cattle Drive" so Savannah wasn't being the only one punished.
"So anyway, Dr. Hofstadter, I think it might be a good idea for you and your girlfriend to evaluate the home life and see if anything is going on that might cause Savannah to act out. She is quite a bright girl, she just needs a little more discipline, and possibly more stablilty."
"So you're saying we're bad parents because my daughter pranked a teacher?" Leonard said. "Let me tell you, people prank teachers all the time. Co – workers prank each other. It's not the start of a nuclear war."
"I know you're protective of your child," the assistant principal said in that same calm, I-know-everything tone that was about to drive Leonard mad, "and all parents believe they are doing everything right, but sometimes you need to take a step back, and…"
"Ow!"
Leonard and Carrie turned in unison. Max had hold of Savannah's hair and had yanked it back, and the girl was slapping at his wrists.
"Max," Carrie said sternly, and the boy let go, still grinning at Savannah, who pouted, holding her own hair, and looked at her father.
Leonard was about to count to ten – a tactic that worked for not blowing up at Sheldon – but then the assistant principal gave him a grin and said "he must like your daughter."
Leonard whirled around. "Are you kidding me?" He said, his face getting red, "are you kidding me?"
"Dr. Hofstadter?"
"When he's four, he pulls her hair, and it's cute, he must like her. What about when he gets rough with her when they're in high school? College? Beyond? When does it stop being cute and start being assault?"
"Okay, Dr. Hofstadter," Cicala said calmly.
"Don't take that tone with me," Leonard said, pointing a finger at her. All the stress of the past month came to his head, and he was hot, not in the correct mindset to be talked down. "Don't even try to tell me I'm overreacting." He turned to Max. "Don't you ever pull her hair again, do you understand me?" Max's mother stepped in front of her son. "Oh relax, I'm not going to come at him," Leonard snapped.
"Dr. Hofstadter," came that voice again, more sharply this time. "Maybe it would be a good idea if you…"
"Leonard?" came a new voice from the doorway.
"Penny?"
"What are you doing here?" She asked. Her eyes were surveying the room. Getting over the initial surprise at seeing her, Leonard noticed she looked tired and drawn, a far cry from her smile in the morning before going off to see the girls.
"I got a message about Savannah," he said.
"Same here," she replied. "What's…what's going on?"
"Ms. Cicala thinks we're bad parents because Savannah played a prank on the substitute teacher. The whole class played a prank on the substitute teacher, but because you and I aren't married, it's all our fault."
"What?" Penny said in surprise, looking at the faculty. "We're bad parents because we aren't married? Is this about sulfur?"
"What?" Cicala asked.
"What?" Max's mother said, looking confused.
"She also is suspending Savannah for the prank but didn't say anything to that boy when he got rough with our daughter."
"He just pulled her hair," Max's mom protested.
"You let your son pull my daughter's hair?" Penny asked. She stormed past the mother son duo and scooped up Savannah, who was starting to cry. When she turned toward Carrie Cicala, her face was as red as Leonard's. "We won't bring her by tomorrow, and this won't happen again. But if any boy touches my daughter and you don't do anything about it, you personally, I'll see to it that the school board realizes that most schools don't need an assistant principal. Haven't you been paying attention to those violent news stories? Or are you too busy spending the time assuming that any child with unmarried parents is going to become some sort of delinquent? It's the twenty first century, for crying out loud."
Savannah's sobs grew in volume, making Leonard think of the irony of Penny's last sentence. He came up and took her arm. "Let's go," he told her quietly. Having blown off some steam, he began to feel uncomfortable in the office. "Thank you for calling us," he said to Cicala, guiding Penny and the crying Savannah out into the hallway.
"Do you think we overreacted?" Penny asked as they headed for the front door.
"Yes," Leonard said. "But I don't really care."
She nodded. "Me either."
When they got outside, Penny put Savannah down and crouched next to her. "Sweetie, don't cry, it's okay."
"Mommy and I are sorry for yelling," Leonard said, kneeling down beside Penny and brushing Savannah's hair back. "We've both been under a lot of stress. We shouldn't have yelled."
"In front of you," Penny added to the end of Leonard's sentence.
Savannah stood there, wiping her eyes. "I want to go home," she said tearfully.
"We can go home right now," Leonard said. "Right now." He looked at Penny. "Come in my car. We can get yours later." Penny nodded, and Leonard picked Savannah up to carry her to the vehicle.
When Savannah was settled in the car seat, Leonard got in the driver's side and looked over at Penny, sitting with her eyes closed and her hand in a fist against her forehead.
He reached over and touched her arm. She shook her head.
The car was dead silent the entire drive home.
This chapter had things get intense in a bit of a different way, but I wanted to show that no matter how disjointed Penny and Leonard might feel right now, with Penny going from depressed to feeling a bit better to now feeling the effects of no sleep again, ditto for Leonard on that last bit, that they'll still unite when it comes to their kids. However, the stress they're both under has made them a bit more volatile, as you see here.