Sequel to: Branches
Penny is back from meeting Bizarro versions of her and Sheldon. Very AU
Penny had been so happy to be back in her own universe that she ran to Sheldon and basically bowled him over, his head in the middle cushion and her body on top.
"Penny?" he didn't even sound upset, just worried.
"Hey Moonpie, look at me." Her voice was soft but her eyes were sharp as knives.
Sheldon looked at her and something in her face made him bring up a hand and cover his throat.
"Now Sheldon, you're going to be very honest with me, okay?" He nodded. Good.
"What the hell is that?" she pointed at the metallic looking box which Sheldon had been fiddling with.
"It's an experiment." Sheldon answered right away.
Penny nodded and smiled sweetly at him "Want to tell me why your experiment just sent me to another universe where I could have been trapped forever?!" Her voice raised with each word, she knew that it was mostly the shock and then the relief of being back home, that is if she hadn't hallucinated the whole thing.
"WHAT?!" She had forgotten that he actually had a weight and height advantage, so when he stood up she ended up on the floor looking up at him. Her ass hurt and she was going to make sure he paid for that as well.
Setting her fists on her hips she glared up at him "You heard me, are you going to deny that's what your experiment was supposed to do?" She saw as Sheldon collapsed on the couch and some of her anger was replaced with worry. He was already pale but now he might as well be transparent.
Okay, first question answered. It hadn't been on purpose.
"Well?" she demanded as she tapped her foot. He turned to look at her but he was not there, the light was on but nobody was home. 'Goddammit Sheldon' she thought as her anger dissipated to manageable levels in order to make sure he was still breathing.
A slammed door made her jump and she looked to the hallway, expecting Leonard she was more surprised when he didn't show up, peering closer revealed an empty hallway and closed doors. 'So he only got up to slam the door closed because we interrupted his sleep, well, fuck you too', she really wasn't expecting much but was it crazy to want her boyfriend to come out and at least check out why she was upset?.
Turning back to Sheldon she saw that he was coming back, his eyes looked more alert and his body started moving. She yelped when his face was suddenly right in front of her and was about to step back when he held her face with his hands and looked right into her eyes. She could feel the blush creep up, she had always found his eyes to be very pretty and this was not helping, she had tried really hard to not imagine their Bizarro counterparts getting it on but this damn Wackadoodle had to come and break through. She licked her lips and Sheldon's eyes followed every movement like a hawk and he finally noticed their closeness.
Sheldon took a very deliberate step back and only because he had been so close she was able to make up the light blush of his cheeks.
"I was trying to create a 'projector' of sorts" so we're ignoring what just happened?, fine. "It was meant to show a glimpse, just a peek of alternate universes." He was getting excited, moving his hands in the air, tracing something only he could see.
"Yeah well, it did a little bit more than that." Her anger was returning, the grabbing of her face, Leonard being an ass and almost getting trapped in another reality made a girl cranky.
"Fascinating." He looked awed.
"No Sheldon. It was terrifying." Finally it clicked for him that she was not sharing his enthusiasm and to his credit he went about preparing her a hot beverage as well as explaining that he would have noticed her missing and put two and two together and he would have made sure to bring her home. He said it with such confidence that she couldn't help but believe it, believe in him.
"Now Penny, I understand you need time to process your experience but this is unprecedented, this can change the world. Please tell me everything." He really looked like a kid on Christmas morning so she told him, the only thing she left out was the romantic relationship between their counterparts. She was not ready to open that can of worms.
Sheldon listened intently and didn't interrupt. Somehow, telling him about it made it all the more real and the fear was being replaced with excitement.
"-and then I ended up back here, Leonard was still in bed so it looks like only seconds or minutes passed here but I must have been gone for 5 or 6 hours." She was exhausted but didn't relish the thought of going back to Leonard's room. The words of Bizarro Penny weighing heavy on her mind 'You deserve better'.
"Penny, I need to do some work. I can finally see my Nobel again. Can we talk later tonight? Leonard and the rest are going to that awful club again." He was already distracted and working on his whiteboard, the metallic device forgotten on the table and she avoided it like she would a snake.
"I don't know sweetie…a drink sounds really nice now." And it did, so many things happened today and she knew how easy it would be to just slip into oblivion.
Sheldon didn't even stop working "I think I can get it open again."
Her breath was stolen. Of course, he activated it by accident so it would stand to reason that he could activate it purposefully now. "Is that safe Honey?" Her voice was breathy and faint.
"I'll make sure it is safe and I'll accompany you this time." Blue eyes met hers, he was so confident, so sure of himself.
Could she really do this? Go back? Yeah, she could. Because Sheldon would be by her side now and that means that whatever happens he has her back. "I'll be here Honey." Her voice showed a confidence she did not feel, but it was okay because Sheldon would be there.
Rejecting Leonard's offer to go to the club shouldn't have felt as good as it did. He looked so disappointed in her that she just wanted to punch him. God, when had things turn so sour, she really didn't want to hate Leonard but he made no secret of how much he disliked her and the things she liked, she even stopped wearing her favorite type of clothes because he couldn't control his jealousy, same for dancing with her girlfriends, she had even rejected going out with a group of girls from work because she knew it would be just easier than to argue with Leonard. Was this really how life was supposed to be? When had she become someone so afraid of everything?.
She spent the afternoon just taking care of herself, eating cheese fries and ice cream without worrying about Leonard's whiny recrimination. She even went out window shopping and when she saw a cute pair of denim shorts she bought them, if for nothing else than to shut up the voice in her head that said 'Leonard would not like that'.
Going back to her apartment she went to prepare herself, she took a hot bath, wore cute makeup and put on her new shorts with a bright blouse and looking at herself in the mirror she had to wonder how she had lost herself so much. This was her, life had taken a lot out of her, the bubbly attitude was almost gone, she was meaner, less naïve, the world looked harsher now. She wants some of the old Penny back.
Hearing voices from 4A she moves and waits by the door, she can hear someone -maybe Amy- ask if Penny will be joining them. Leonard's voice comes through clearly "No, she's being a bitc-" and someone laughs and then the voices fade away.
She waits for the pang of pain, of her boyfriend referring to her as a bitch, of her friends laughing at it, except, it doesn't come. She's just so tired of it all. After Bernadette married Howard she started taking Leonard's side more and more often and treated Penny like a crazy person for wanting to be treated better or wanting more. Amy seemed to waver between admiration and outright disgust and referred to Leonard's opinion first. Howard had mellowed out since Bernadette and him got together but he was still a little creep and she knew that he would always take Leonard's side no matter what, and Raj, poor Raj, he was a sweetheart when not drunk and when not influenced by Howard which sadly wasn't often.
And then there was the Wackadoodle himself, she always felt close to him. With him it was always easy, like 2 pieces of broken glass that fit too well with one another. He was an ass but he was an ass to everyone. Sheldon was never purposefully hurtful, he was the perfect example of honesty without mercy and some days he was the only one that would tell her the truth. But he also admitted defeat when she got him good, He challenged her to be better. He was her best friend. And then she started to pull away, she knew he was aware of it and yet he never mentioned it, giving her the space she seemingly wanted. No more spaghetti dinners, no more soft kitty, no more Halo. No more requests for her to drive him somewhere. No more sets of three knocks. No more Penny's spot. Because she had abandoned it.
Taking a shuddering breath she had to admit how lonely she had felt without Sheldon, because sure, they were still together in the group, but they no longer interacted with one another, just the two of them. At least not like they used to. To her it seemed that he was forcing himself to be with Amy…the same way she forced herself to be with Leonard. Two lonely people surrounded by people that didn't give a shit about them.
What the hell was she doing with her life? Sure, she liked having that extra income from her new job but that feeling of wanting to act did not go away no matter how many times she tried to drown it in wine.
She had to find herself again, and more importantly she had to like herself again. Getting her best friend back sounded like a good place to start. And it wasn't until her hand was on the doorknob that all of the anxiety, fear and nervousness came back, it hit her like a wave and she had to rest her head against the door. It was all too much.
"C'mon Penny, you got this." she muttered repeatedly. She wanted to stop fear from running her life, every decision she had made in the last few years had been born out of fear. Screw that.
Deep breath and she's out of her door and opening 4A before any more second guessing can haunt her.
She had to hand it to Sheldon, when he had time to prepare it was hard to beat him. As soon as she was in 4A he had started to move, he had a note written 'I'm feeling sick Leonard, can you get me some soup?' and asked her to write something about her taking care of him and to tape it on the door to 4A. Then he locked, deadbolted and barricaded the door.
"We can't risk being interrupted or anyone else going through that portal. The ramifications are too big to leave it up to chance." He said to her look and she had to admit that it did make sense.
"So what's the plan here Moonpie? Are you simply activating it and we're walking through it?"
"Don't call me Moonpie. Essentially, yes. However…" his hesitation brought a new wave of anxiety "one of the components in the machine is basically a very expensive gemstone called Painite and earlier, after investigating the 'camera' (although I suppose I need to find a new way to call it) I noticed that the mineral had for the lack of a better word 'crumbled'. I fortunately had the foresight to have a spare of each component but this means this is most likely the last time we can activate the machine (Perhaps 'The Cooper Portal'?) so we should take full advantage of the time we have available to us. You mentioned 5 to 6 hours of time spent there and that should be our benchmark for this excursion." He stood in front of her, serious and business-like.
"How expensive a gem are we talking here?" That part had caught her attention, especially knowing this could very well be the last time they could use it before Sheldon proudly revealed it to the world, because she had no doubt that he would.
"Painite is an extremely rare mineral. These two specimens were provided to Caltech for identification and study but if you were to try and buy these in the open market then you would have to pay 80,000 to 100,000 per carat if not more. There are not many known deposits and the few that are known are heavily controlled."
She tried to close her mouth but it was hard, 100k for a single carat? These scientists were loaded. 'Waitaminute'.
"Sheldon, does the university know that you have these rocks?"
"Of course they do!" She can breathe again "They were small and held no particular interest for study. I went through the proper channels."
"Okay, okay, just making sure Honey." She knew that sometimes Sheldon was happy to ignore the law in order to obtain something he wanted and in this case she had to wonder how many headaches he caused before whoever was in charge just gave in to his demands.
"I need a few minutes to double check everything, then I will once again point it towards Leonard's door and we'll know if the Nobel is within my grasp." He glared at the box, willing it to work and then took a seat in his spot.
She was going to sit in Leonard's chair before stopping herself. In a deliberate move, she sat in what had once been her spot.
Sheldon stopped tinkering with the machine and turned to look at her in confusion and that look hurt her far more than Leonard's dismissive words earlier. "Hey Sheldon," she reached to touch his arm and he flinched away 'double ouch', she knew it wasn't unwarranted, she had stopped touching him. Something about the way Leonard was meaner to Sheldon after she touched him made it easier for her to simply stop. Like she had stopped being his best friend. She felt like crying but not yet 'No fear Penny'.
"Sheldon. I'm so sorry." He was looking at her closely now, she knew that in the time it took her to open her mouth again he had already reviewed their past interactions and was now trying to find a reason for her apologizing and most likely was coming up blank, simply because they no longer had that many interactions.
"I'm sorry for not being there." And it's only because she's looking at him so closely that she catches the full body flinch, as if she had shocked him with a live wire. "I was so stupid, you were my best friend an-" She can't stop the sobs and tears now so she doesn't even try. She lets go.
The hand on her shoulder and the mechanical 'There, there' feel undeserved and she only cries harder.
'Enough Penny, no easy way out. Talk to him' She gets her emotions under control little by little and between sobs she explains it to him. How she felt alone, how she knew it was her fault for stepping back from their friendship. He was her best friend. She cried her way through the explanation of how Leonard would act whenever Sheldon and her shared hobbies or activities and she stupidly thought it was easier to not rock the boat, to pretend everything was fine and then Amy was there and Sheldon could talk science with Amy and at one point she felt like Sheldon didn't need a Penny in his life anymore, not when there was an Amy there, occupying the spot she had left, in this couch, in his life.
Sheldon simply sat and listened as she bawled her way through an apology long overdue and it wasn't until she was done that she realized that his hand had not left her shoulder, it brought a smile to her face and she hoped it was a sign that they would be okay.
"Penny, I-" There were very few times that she had seen Sheldon speechless but she was happy for it this time, because he was taking her seriously, he was not dismissing her words or feelings out of hand.
"I thought…Penny," He ran a hand over his pants frustratedly, anxiously and he finally looked her in the eye. Bright clear blue pools showed her what his face wouldn't or couldn't. The pain, the anger, the hope.
"Penny, as you must know by now, I'm not a sociable individual. I'm brilliant and always have been but this has always put a barrier between me and the rest of the world. Even with Leonard and the rest, they make no secret of the fact that they tolerate me at best and actively despise me at worst." Her heart broke at his words, because she knew. Sheldon Cooper did not lie and there were no twitches on his face.
"And I was content with this knowledge. But then you came barreling into our lives and I found myself floundering, you were chaos incarnate. You brought disruption into my life and yet I found that your presence was desirable, you quickly carved your own place in my life. You were my best friend." She smiled at his words, but her smile disappeared at 'were'.
"You left." It was not an accusation, but stating a fact. "You stopped spending time with me, stopped playing games, stopped giving me rides and stopped sitting next to me." The way he was so business-like in his delivery would have made her upset any other time, he was acting as if he didn't care, his words and tone were clinical. But she never took her eyes away from his and it made her feel horrible. There was a mountain of pain and she was only seeing the bottom of it.
"So I assumed you had finally had enough of me like everyone else." A punch to the chest would have hurt less. He thought she was tired of him. "As you resumed your ill-fated relationship with Leonard, it became abundantly clear that you had made a choice. Despite this I found myself looking forward to your continued presence in my life. And then Amy joined our group and you looked relieved when she did and removed yourself even further from our interactions until they were left to the bare minimum possible." She deserved every bit of pain that his words were causing, he said that she had made a choice and the pain in his eyes was deep. He had never been anyone's choice.
"Sheldon, I'm so sorry." She held his hand in hers, hoping, willing her body to transmit how sorry she truly was. She wanted to wind back the clock, to go back and shake the past version of herself until she stopped being stupid.
"I never realized that you were in so much distress as well, so I believe that this brings us back to zero." He gave her a small hesitant smile and her heart soared.
"We can start over Sheldon. I want to be in your life, I want to be your friend again."
"That is acceptable." She inhaled deeply and held it until it hurt. They were going to be okay. Letting go of the breath she allowed her body to relax into the middle cushion. This was a great start, she was lucky that Sheldon forgave her and wanted to give their friendship another shot. This time she would not mess it up.
As for step two, it could wait until after they came back from this alternate world excursion. She needed to break things off once and for all with Leonard.