Cheers for reading and waiting for the last 2 weeks,
This will be last chapter of the story (the road to commitment has been met)
Beginning of August 2015
It was 1pm and Penny had gone into labour at home and Leonard was teaching and had his phone switched off, Amy who was supposed to be her 2nd choice birthing partner was at a two day Neuroscience conference in San Francisco and wasn't due back until later that day, Natasha was at work in the store and the only person available and close enough to help was Sheldon and he was currently panicking whilst watching Penny suffer through excruitiating labour pains
"Penny I can only tell you from the experience of Amy giving birth that you need to calm down a bit and relax, screaming wont help the baby" said Sheldon trying to be reasonable
"Yes thank you Sheldon, can you try Bernadette again?
Sheldon rang Bernadette and finally got an answer, she was coming straight over and had rang Howard at work to go and get Leonard from his class
Bernadette arrived 15 minutes later and took Sheldon's place and left Rose with him whilst he saw to Marie who was awake and waiting to be fed, Sheldon called Amy's mother who had recently moved nearer to her daughter and she came over quickly and took the girls back to Sheldon and Amy's house while Sheldon attempted to help Penny, Bernadette was counting the minutes between contractions which were only 2 minutes apart and an ambulance was on its way, Penny's midwife had just arrived and after checking Penny announced that she would probably have to have a home birth
"But everything is going wrong, Leonard and Amy are not here and I am two weeks early" shouted Penny in between pains
"Penny lets take you upstairs to your bedroom and get you settled there, if you have some old sheets that would be useful as well" said the midwife leading Penny upstairs with Bernadette, Sheldon was left to wait by the front door for Leonard
"Aaaaaargggggggggghhhhhhhh" yelled Penny in response as her body cramped with another contraction
"Ok Penny you need to push now, the head is starting to come through"
Penny pushed and grabbed Bernadette's hand, then as the midwife instructed her to push again Leonard came bursting through the bedroom door just in time to see baby Archie emerging with another ear splitting yell from Penny
"Congratulations Penny, your baby is here" said the midwife checking that Archie was ok and cutting the cord before cleaning him up and passing him to Penny
"Penny I'm so sorry I wasn't here for the start of the labour" said Leonard giving his wife a kiss
"Leonard you got here for the most important bit and that's the main thing" said Penny gazing down at her son who was looking back at her intently "Would you like to hold him? Asked Penny to Leonard
"Of course" said Leonard as Penny passed the baby to him
"You got here quick then" said Penny to Leonard
"Yes, Howard came and got me and drove me straight here, I have no idea what's going on with the class I was teaching" replied Leonard as he kissed his little son
"Ok Penny the ambulance has just arrived and will take you to the hospital for a quick check up and on Archie as well seeing as he was a bit early, he seems fine though" said the midwife coming back into the room
Whilst Penny got herself cleaned up, Leonard took the baby downstairs where there was a crowd of Sheldon, Howard, Bernadette and Amy's mother with the two babies
"Everybody I would like you to meet Archie Hofstadter" said Leonard "Also thank you to you Sheldon and Bernadette for being here when I couldn't be" said Leonard looking emotional
Sheldon just nodded and Bernadette offered to go with them to the hospital which was accepted and Sheldon along with Amy's mother took the babies back to his house, before he did that though he video phoned Amy to let her know the news, he knew she would be finished her speech by now
"Hi Amy, I have some news for you" said Sheldon smirking at Leonard
"Oh yes what's that and how's Marie been?
"Marie has been perfect but there is somebody I would like you to meet" said Sheldon turning the phone round in the direction of Leonard and baby Archie
"Oh my goodness, Penny had the baby? He is adorable, is Penny ok?
"Yes she had an unexpected home birth and I got here just in time to see him being born" replied Leonard
"Who was there to help her? Asked Amy
"Me at first, then luckily Bernadette came and the midwife also and they took over, for which I am glad" replied Sheldon
"Ok well I will be home by 8pm, I can meet him then" said Amy
"Do you want dinner when you get in or shall we get a takeaway" asked Sheldon
"Takeaway will be fine, love you, I have to go and see another speech now"
"See you when you get home then" said Sheldon signing off
When Penny, Leonard, Bernadette and Archie arrived at the hospital they were shown to the maternity ward and Archie was checked over, the doctors declared him to be fine and that he weighed 8 pounds and that he was able to go straight home, luckily Bernie had followed the ambulance by car and had brought the baby seat with her, so they arrived back home within a couple of hours of Archie being born, Natasha had been told of the baby's birth by Sheldon and after leaving the store keys with one of the personal assistants, had left and was at Sheldon and Amy's house waiting to meet her nephew, she had text Leonard and Penny that she was there and they came straight to the house, Howard had gone back to Caltech and informed President Siebert of the situation and was now back at Sheldon and Amy's house along with Amy's mother and Alex who had also just arrived
"Penny my first nephew, let me have a look at him" said Natasha gushing at him "Oh I phoned mum and dad and they will be here in the morning"
"Thanks Nat, I just feel exhausted now and need to sit down" said Penny flopping into an armchair, Leonard took Archie out of the car seat and handed him to Natasha who was sitting on the couch, this led to two things happening, Rose who was now 1 year old and just started to walk, waddled over and sat next to Natasha and investigated the new arrival, Archie was currently making little gurgling noises, this also intrigued Daisy who after a year of babies was fine with children
"By the way Raj arrived home this morning from his holiday in India with Kelly, he said in his email he had news for us, I rang him just now and he's coming over shortly, Amy wont be here until at least 8pm though, she's very excited to meet Archie" said Sheldon
"Yes Raj was being very secretive about his plans for when he was in India, I would have thought he would have told me his best friend at least" said Howard looking put out
"Penny and Leonard you are welcome to stay here for the remainder of the evening, I will order takeaway for us all" said Sheldon
"Thank you Sheldon, I will probably go back next door to clean up though" said Penny
"No need Penny, I did it all for you, the sheets have been washed and are drying on your washing line" replied Barbara
"Barbara you didn't need to do that but thank you" said Penny
"Nonsense, you were there for Amy when she gave birth and I wanted to do something to help"
Just then Marie woke up crying and wouldn't stop for a while, Bernadette noticed that Marie's cheeks were very red and realised she was probably teething
"Sheldon check if she has any teeth coming through, it's not unusual to get some at 6 months old and I can get you some medicine to help ease the pain if you like" said Bernadette
"Could you thanks" replied Sheldon checking Marie's mouth and finding two little teeth side by side at the front of her mouth
"In the mean time, dip her dummy in some iced water and that might help soothe the pain" said Barbara as Bernadette went to the chemist and returned with the baby medicine, it seemed to help
Raj arrived at 8pm along with Kelly, Amy also arrived back at the same time and looked exhausted after her busy two days, after saying a quick hello to everybody and seeing that Marie and Archie were sleeping, she took Sheldon to the kitchen and greeted him with a passionate kiss
"Sheldon I've missed you and I hope I don't have to go on anymore of those" said Amy cuddling her husband
"I missed you too, it's been very busy here today as you have noticed" said Sheldon kissing his wife again
"I would love to do more but we have a house full of guests, we can do that later" said Amy reluctantly letting go of her husband but not before he made sure Amy could see how happy he was to have her back, they both returned to the living room and Raj decided to make his announcement
"My news has been usurped by the arrival of baby Archie but nevertheless it is still good news, as you know I went to India with Kelly for the sole purpose of introducing her to my parents, they have always wanted me to marry a nice Indian girl but after spending time with Kelly, they liked her a lot and to cut a long story short, we got married there" said Raj
The group looked at him astonished but quickly congratulated the happy couple, Kelly looked Radiant and Raj was the happiest they had seen him for a long time
"I thought your parents had threatened to cut you off from the money that gave you if you didn't marry an Indian girl" asked Howard
"Yes but things change and they can see Kelly is not a gold-digger" said Raj putting his arms around Kelly
"Kelly will you still be working as the manager at the Penny Blossom site" asked Penny
"Of course, I love working there and at the store when you are short staffed" replied Kelly
"Ok good, I just thought it might be awkward, Raj is your husband and he might want you to stay at home" said Penny
"Well I did suggest it to her but that's another reason why my parents like her, because she wants to work, anyway can I meet your son now? asked Raj
"Sure, Leonard can you get him for Raj, I am too comfy here in the armchair to get up! Replied Penny
Raj and Amy took turns holding Archie and before long the evening passed quickly and Leonard and Penny returned to their house with baby Archie Hofstadter
Two weeks later
Amy had returned back to working at Caltech full time, she was working 10am-4pm and her mother was looking after Marie 4 days a week and Sheldon had decided to work from home one day a week to also look after Marie, Amy was enjoying being back at work but she found that she missed her baby and after seeing Archie, Amy found herself feeling broody, she hadn't mentioned anything to Sheldon just yet as she still wanted to ease herself back into working at Caltech for a while before she thought about baby number two but she also realised that she was more than ready if it did happen
Leonard had taken a month off work and was helping Penny with Archie, he was turning out to be a very laid back little boy, he slept most of the nights and Leonard was determined to give him the happy childhood that he never had, Beverley had stopped by for one night and was surprisingly good with him, Penny's parents had stayed for a week getting to know their first grandson and Penny had taken the baby to her store to show her work colleagues, she was truly happy with Leonard and Archie, it may have taken a long road to get where she was but she realised it was truly worth it
The end, everybody happy and settled down
I hope that you have all enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and I would like to thank everybody who has reviewed the story and made comments elsewhere
There may be more stories in the future
