Sequel to: Permutation

Penny has a long overdue conversation with Leonard.

Dinner with the guys went pretty well. Now the couch consists of Mindy, Penny and Sheldon in that order. Howard and Raj didn't mind sitting on the floor and Penny was pretty happy…until she realized that it was so they could ogle her legs.

Thankfully nothing weird happened, until she excused herself to go get her mail and Leonard offered to go with her (even though he had already picked it up earlier), she was about to call him out on it but decided against it. It was the perfect moment to have that conversation with him. She did not miss the look of concern on Mindy's face.

Leonard kept talking about his work and how he was getting some new funding and his laser experiment was actually a cool thing and Penny should be excited about it. Penny kept a neutral face and she would nod from time to time just to show she was listening but did not engage with him like she usually would do.

By the time they reached the mailboxes Penny could see Leonard getting desperate, twisting himself for her attention.

"Leonard, Sweetie. Stop." Penny held a hand up. "We need to talk."

"Oh! Sure, I love talking, you know me."

"Actually, I don't think I do." That finally makes him stop shuffling.

"Huh?"

"Look Leonard…I don't even know how to start so I'm going to take a page out of Sheldon's book and just be brutally honest." She can see in his face that he truly has no idea what this is about. "I have a speech prepared for when someone approaches me just because I'm a hot blond. They mistake my kindness for an invitation to be sexually crude or downright rape-y with the way they address me or even try to touch me. You have never heard it, because even as creepy as Howard is, he's always known where to draw the line." Deep breath because this part is going to be hard. "However, I think that you need to hear it now."

Leonard is looking confused, but he's smart, it takes him a second to get it. And when he does, she's happy to see the recoil in disgust he takes, because he was standing way too close to her. Maybe there's hope.

"I am more than my ass or tits. I have feelings. I am not arm candy that you can parade around or someone that you can sleep with for bragging rights. My name is Penny, I have dreams, aspirations, and I am a human being."

The guilt on Leonard's face doesn't feel great. She refused to see it but she had always been aware that Leonard saw her as some sort of trophy. He was always so willing to twist himself into knots of whatever he thought was the right answer, so willing to leave everything he was behind. Comics? He reneged them until she showed interest, Star Trek? Claimed to have never watched it, Paintball? He always seemed so embarrassed to admit that he liked it, Star Wars, Chess, Cello, Board Games, that weird Klingon word game. There was no facet of his life that Leonard wasn't willing to betray and/or abandon if he thought it would give him a chance with Penny. She was the prize for finally getting the answer right.

And Fuck that.

"Look Leonard, I don't know if you noticed but my sister is not exactly a fan of yours right now. Do you want to know why? Because the first time you saw her, she was not a human being to you, she was just ass and tits. She noticed the way that you looked at her and it made her feel shitty. Why do you think she looked worried when you followed me out here?."

Frustration makes her run a hand through her hair. As if untangling her hair could make all of this disappear.

"And it also didn't make me feel great, Leonard. You've been asking me on dates since forever, but the moment a good looking woman passes in front of you, you forget that I exist until you get rejected or bored and then you come back sniffing my way."

Leonard's face is a mask of guilt, far too many truths that have stripped away at him.

"Did you ever like me? Not as someone you could fuck, but as a person?"

"I did!, you're beautiful and-"

"NO! Leonard, please! Tell me that you liked me for more than my body." Penny pleads "Tell me something that you like of me that's not due to me being hot."

As Penny waits for his answer, she wonders why these emotional confrontations always happen in places where someone else could intrude at any moment and yet, they have the lobby for themselves.

"I like that you're kind." Leonard finally says, but his posture is defeated. He realizes that he took too long to answer. He told the truth but either he had to think about it or for the first time ever realize that Penny existed as more than his fantasy of the hot blond.

"God. Leonard…" She wants to cry for him. He's probably broken in a way that she truly doesn't want to know. And she doesn't know what else to say because she never expected for it to be this bad.

"Do you think we can still be friends?" His voice is on the verge of tears and Penny hopes it is because he realized how messed up he really is and not because he might have missed his shot with her.

"I don't know Leonard. Can you be friends with me knowing that I'll never sleep with you or date you?." And there's the truth, because Penny can't afford to take risks now that her little sister is here. In another life she might have given this relationship thing with Leonard a shot, to try and fix him just because he wasn't her usual type of date, but this is no longer that life.

Leonard grimaces but seems to catch himself. "I…I didn't have the best childhood, my mom is-no." Runs a frustrated hand over his face and removes his glasses. "I always wanted to be one of the cool guys, I thought that maybe you coul-no." Leonard shifts in place and looks intently at his feet. "I never really knew what-no." He exhales loudly and hesitates. "I fucked up." Leonard finally looks up at her, "I fucked up, that's the truth. I am afraid of therapy. I kept telling myself that I didn't need it. That I was fine. I was expecting a girlfriend to fix things for me. I loved Leslie but I broke up with her because I was afraid of committing to her…because I thought that would mean I was abandoning my chances of being with you."

Penny wipes a couple of angry tears from her eyes. Leonard needed major help, as in monumental size help. She's now glad to not have said 'yes' to the date invitation.

"Penny, these two years since you've been living across from us it's been great. We've -Howard, Raj, Sheldon and me- had more fun since you've been here. I know that I fucked up and couldn't appreciate your friendship. But, yeah. I think I'd like to be your friend eventually, for real."

Leonard is not crying but Penny can tell that this took a lot out of him. Penny nods at him.

"I'd like that as well Sweetie." And she's telling the truth, she'd like to know the true Leonard eventually.

"Can you tell Sheldon that I ran for an errand or something?" He doesn't wait for her to acknowledge his words and leaves for his car.

Penny is exhausted. This was a long overdue conversation. Over two years overdue.

She trudges up the long way to the 4th floor.

Leonard finally parks his car. He is ashamed, and can feel it in every part of his body, so much that he fears that shame will become a part of his DNA, although he suspects it already is.

He wanted to refute Penny, to lie, to manipulate, to make himself into the victim, the good guy. But he couldn't, the thought that Penny's sister had clocked him as someone to not trust in their first meeting was a horrifying thought. He had always made fun of Howard because of his lack of tact, but he had to wonder if he himself wasn't actually worse.

The fact that his first instinct upon being confronted was to lie and to try and play the victim card made him feel much worse, the same old excuses were already out of his mouth before he could actually think it through. Blame your mother, explain how you were unloved, play the kicked puppy. But he was almost 30 now, he couldn't keep going through life like this.

With Penny in front of him he saw two roads. The first, he kept going as he was, hoping to manipulate a girl into loving him enough that he feels less broken. Or the second, take responsibility for his life. Leonard really, really, really wanted a hot girl to make everything suddenly right for him. He had hoped that Penny was that girl, but he didn't understand her, she was a beautiful blond and yet she watched football, she was hot but she liked the same geeky things they did. It's why when Penny was dressed like a slob during her Age of Conan phase Leonard didn't pay any attention to her, he didn't want THAT girl. He wanted the hot blond.

He wanted someone he could put in and out of storage to soothe his ego. He didn't care if it was Penny or not, he can admit that now. He was trying to fool himself into thinking he loved Penny, but he didn't even know her well. In the 2 years she's been living in front of him Leonard hasn't ever bothered to know anything about her, he doesn't know what her favorite color is.

The truth is, he doesn't care.

And accepting that he doesn't care comes at a high cost, because it goes against everything he believes himself to be. The nice guy. The guy who can't catch a break. The victim.

A knock at his car window startles Leonard, he looks who it is and he takes a deep breath before lowering the window.

"What are you doing here Hofstadter?"

"Hey Leslie. I wanted to talk to you."

Leonard wanted to make things right. He knows that means taking therapy. But he owes Leslie an apology first.

I like my Leonard bashing as much as the next guy. However, I do think there is a clear before and a clear after. A moment when the character became irremediable. That being of course The Arctic.

I believe that S1/S2 Leonard is still a very flawed character but one that can take a hard left towards being a decent human being.
I believe that S3 and onward Leonard is irremediable, and in fact only became worse and worse with each episode,

As you've probably noticed, I like to set stories during the first seasons and mostly ignore later ones or remove Penny and Sheldon from them as fast as possible. As such, for this story I didn't want to take the easy way out with Leonard...having said all of that, also don't expect a lot of redemption arcs for him because I hate Leonard, all my homies hate Leonard.