fic: The Future Uncertainty; part 2/2
Title: The Future Uncertainty
Pairing(s): Leonard/Penny
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory and Flashforward (the novel), but only containing characters from TBBT
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some spoilers for Flashforward
Word Count: 15,001
Summary: Disaster strikes when an experiment at at CERN causes everyone in the world to blackout for two minutes. But during that time, everyone has a vision of their lives 6 months in the future. A wrench is thrown into Leonard and Penny's attempts to fix their post-breakup friendship when their visions show them together once again. Now they must decide whether or not they believe the visions to be the definite future, or just a possibility. Can Penny overcome her fear of being hurt? And will Leonard be willing to give her another chance if she does?
Part 1 here
*****
It was three days before the Cheesecake Factory was open again for business, and even then it was for only in the evening for dinner. With the cause of the Flashforward still a mystery, many people were afraid that it would happen again, and were hesitant to leave the safety of their homes.
Penny had to leave her apartment 45 minutes before her shift started to ensure she’d make it on time, as she had to walk, but she didn’t mind much. The alternative would be sitting alone at home, desperately trying to distract herself.
Leonard’s car had remained unscathed, she knew, but she was still avoiding seeing him while she tried to sort through her feelings. The public buses had started running again the day before, but only certain routes, and unfortunately the Cheesecake Factory wasn’t on any of them.
She walked quickly, eager to reach the restaurant, giving a small smile and nod to the few people she passed along the way. During her recent jogs she’d noticed an increased sense of camaraderie among strangers on the street, and small greetings were exchanged where before there would have been silence. Pessimistically she doubted this change would last for long, but it was nice while it lasted.
When she finally got to the restaurant she hoped the work would keep her mind occupied, but the dinner rush never came. People trickled in and out, but it was nowhere near the normal evening frenzy. Normally Penny would kill for a shift like this, but now she just wanted to work and try to forget.
Her break finally came, and Penny retreated to the back room, wishing she could just go back home. She had just sat down when Bernadette entered the room.
“Hey,” Penny said casually, but Bernadette hurried over and engulfed her in a hug.
“What - is everything okay?” Penny asked, wondering what had come over the woman. They’d always been friendly, and had gotten to know each other even better when Bernadette was dating Howard, but they’d still never been especially close.
Bernadette let go and took a step back.
“Sorry, I’ve just been all over the place,” she said, her voice slightly strained. “In my, uh, vision as people are calling them, I was checking the schedule at work. I know it sounds silly, but your name wasn’t on it.” Penny and Bernadette’s last names started with the same letter, and were always right next to each other on the schedule. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then after everything… I started to wonder if maybe something happened to you.”
Penny was touched that Bernadette cared so much.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she reassured her. “Nothing but a small cut,” she added, pointing unnecessarily to the bandage.
Bernadette nodded.
“Howard told me you were fine. It’s just - seeing you, I guess, brought all the emotion back.”
“Wait - you talked to Howard?” Penny was surprised. As far as she knew, there hadn’t been any contact since the breakup two months ago. Bernadette had told her it was mutual, but didn’t want to go into any more detail than that. Penny hadn’t pressured her, but she’d suspected that it was more one-sided than Bernadette had let on.
“He called to see if I was okay,” Bernadette said, blushing ever so slightly. “He’s a sweet guy.”
“Yeah, sweet,” Penny deadpanned, still confused by what Bernadette had seen in him.
“So do you know where you’ll be working in six months?” Bernadette asked. “I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone!”
Penny rolled her eyes.
“If my time’s really coming to an end at the Cheesecake Factory, it’s news to me. I’ve got no idea.”
“Maybe you move?” Bernadette suggested. “Were you somewhere else in your vision?”
Penny shook her head.
“No, I was definitely in my apartment.” She paused, suddenly feeling an urge to tell Bernadette about what she saw, to have a sounding board to bounce thoughts off of. She was desperate to talk it over with someone, and Bernadette was really the best girl friend she had right now. “Actually,” she said, drawing out the word, “Leonard was there too.”
Bernadette gasped in excitement.
“Really! What happened?”
“Well we were on my couch, watching a movie, I didn’t recognize it. But anyway, I was leaning against him and couldn’t see him at first, until I finally turned around.”
“And?” Bernadette pressed when Penny paused.
“I told him I loved him,” Penny said, her heart racing at the memory. “And he said he loved me too, and we almost kissed, but then it ended.”
Bernadette squealed.
“I knew you two would get back together! You’re just too perfect for each other.” She sighed, “I wish I got to see something cool. All I got was my work schedule for the week six months from now. Big whoop.”
“I thought you told me I was making the right decision when I broke up with Leonard!” Penny said accusingly.
“Well you were running scared,” Bernadette said. “You needed time to figure things out. It wouldn’t have done any good if I’d tried to convince you otherwise.”
“I wasn’t scared!” Penny denied hotly.
Bernadette just smiled.
“I wasn’t!” Penny repeated. “I just - we’re too different. It wouldn’t have lasted. I mean, look at who he’s been involved with before - Leslie Winkle, Doctor Stephanie, that slut-bunny scientist… Eventually he’s going to realize that’s what he wants.”
“A skanky woman who uses him for one night, then hits on his friends?” Bernadette asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what Leonard wants.”
“Fine, bad example there. But Leslie, Stephanie - he’s going to want someone smarter. Not a waitress who couldn’t even finish community college.”
“That’s a little unfair to Leonard, don’t you think?” Bernadette asked softly. “Not even giving him the chance to prove otherwise. And besides, he doesn’t fit the mold of who you’ve previously dated either, right? But that didn’t matter to you.”
It did matter, Penny thought, but not in the same way. Leonard was different, but he was better. He was safe.
Until he’d told her that he loved her, and with a shock she’d realized she might feel the same. And then suddenly he was as dangerous as every other man she’d ever dated, holding her heart, with the power to break it.
So maybe she was scared. But hat didn’t mean that she was wrong.
*****
Penny was surprised the next day to find the guys at their usual table for dinner. With everything going on she had lost track of the days, but now that she took a moment to think about it she realized it was Tuesday. Not even a worldwide disaster could deter Sheldon from his Tuesday cheeseburger at the Cheesecake Factory.
She took a deep breath before approaching their table, hoping that Leonard wouldn’t try to discuss the visions again with the rest of the guys around. They hardly noticed her, though, as they were so engrossed in their conversation.
“There’s no way they could have predicted what would happen,” Leonard was saying to Sheldon.
“Of course they couldn’t, with their inferior minds, but I’m sure if I had been there to look over their plans -”
“You honestly think you’re smarter than all the scientists combined at CERN?” Howard cut in, exasperated.
“I don’t think, I know.”
“Uh, CERN?” Penny asked, finally catching the guys attention. “Isn’t that the place in Switzerland, with the collider thingy?”
“The Large Hadron Collider,” Sheldon automatically corrected. “They made an announcement today that they believe one of their experiments caused the Flashforward.”
“One of their experiments?” Penny frowned. “What in the world were they doing?”
“They were looking for the Higgs boson particle.”
Penny stared at him blankly.
“They were attempting to recreate conditions that haven’t existed since the big bang,” he elaborated.
She still started.
“They were making really tiny things crash into each other at really fast speeds,” Leonard finally offered.
“That’s all?” Penny asked. “Something smashes into something else, and it knocks everybody out?”
Leonard shook his head.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that, there’s an incredible amount of energy involved. And really, they don’t know what caused it, but the fact that they were doing their experiment at exact the same time as the Flashforward… I agree with them that they’re the most likely cause. I actually can’t believe I didn’t think of them sooner, I knew that they were supposed to try their experiment that day, I guess in the rush with everything else I just forgot -”
Raj quickly whispered in Howard’s ear, who nodded and repeated what he said.
“Oh yeah, they issued a statement that day that said their experiment was delayed, and then ultimately cancelled after the Flashforward.”
“So that’s it?” Penny asked. “We don’t have to worry anymore?”
Leonard shrugged.
“As long as they don’t do whatever they were doing again, we should be safe.”
“Of course, we never would have been in danger if you had just taken me to CERN in the first place,” Sheldon said. “One look at their plans, and I’m sure I would have seen the problem.”
Penny looked down at her notepad, feeling the conversation drift into dangerous territory. CERN and Switzerland and Valentine’s Day… too many painful memories.
“Sheldon,” Leonard said, a warning tone in his voice. “Can we please not get into this again.”
“This is just one more reason why your and Penny’s relationship was ill-conceived,” Sheldon continued, ignoring Leonard’s protests.
“Excuse me?” Penny sputtered, looking up in shock. “You can’t possibly be blaming us for everything.”
“Of course not,” Sheldon said, “Don’t think so highly of yourselves. Clearly the scientists at CERN are to blame. I just wish I could have helped them see the error of their ways.”
Penny rolled her eyes, it was pointless to try to argue the point further.
“How about I just take your order.”
*****
With CERN’s reassurance that the threat of another Flashforward was gone, slowly but surely, life began to return to normal. At least, as close to normal as possible. People were more willing to leave their homes, and the streets were once again busy with cars and traffic.
Still, the visions and glimpse of the future was being hotly debated, whether or not the future was fixed or not. Penny closely followed the discussions, and did her best to understand as the experts talked about block universes, and alternate timelines, and even, she was amused to hear one day, Schrodinger’s Cat.
Much of her free time at home was now spent online browsing the Mosaic Project, the website database that CERN had built to give people a place to share their visions. She had a somewhat love/hate relationship with the site; she still didn’t - couldn’t - believe that the visions showed a definite future, but she found herself drawn to the site anyway, too curious to ignore it.
One of the first things she’d done was search for her own name, wondering if maybe her big acting break supposedly came sometime within the next six months. When that led to nothing, she began reading entries at random, finding a strange fascination in the stories.
She mentally catalogued as she went, attempting to find visions that could already be proven true to false, but so far it was impossible to nail them down as one way or the other. The future was still open to all possibilities, as far as she could tell.
With the return to regular life, Leonard and Penny were slowly drifting back into their tentative pre-Flashforward friendship. Back to when they only passed each other in the hallways, and exchanged brief pleasantries, if even that. Penny hated it.
It was Thursday when they finally had a solid answer about the visions. “Man With Confirmed Vision Commits Suicide,” the newspaper headline read across the front page, with a sub headline of “Future Not Fixed.”
Penny skimmed the article skeptically during her break at work. Business had finally picked up again, and they were nearly as busy as ever, meaning she had precious few minutes before she had to be back out on the floor.
There had been one other report of a man who claimed to have a vision, yet died the day after the Flashforward. But there were doubts as to the validity of what he claimed to see, and so no conclusive decision was made.
But his young man, Dimitrios Procopides, from Greece, had seen his future. Others had seen him in their visions. Now he was dead, and those visions had no way of becoming a reality.
“Did you see this?” Penny asked Bernadette, holding up the paper as she walked into the break room.
Bernadette shook her head.
“You know, for someone who doesn’t believe the visions show the future, you’re sure investing a lot of time into them,” she commented.
“I’m not invested,” Penny said, folding the newspaper, “just curious.”
“Curious about events that aren’t going to happen?”
“I just need to know that I made the right decision,” Penny said, sweeping out of the room and back into the busy restaurant, welcoming the crowded tables that would keep her preoccupied for hours to come.
*****
That night as she returned home to her apartment building, Penny ran into Leonard in the entrance way, as he was checking his mail.
Even though she’d already checked her box earlier on her way out, Penny went over to check it again.
“Hey,” she said, giving him a smile.
“Hey,” he said, barely glancing up at her before looking back at his mail. He headed towards the stairs.
“Wait up a sec,” Penny said, opening her mailbox only to slam it shut just as quickly. “I’ll walk up with you.”
Leonard waited silently, then when she was next to him began the long climb up the stairs.
She wasn’t sure why she was trying now, after days of avoiding each other, but she felt like she had to do something to fill the persistent ache in her stomach.
“How’s it going at work?” she asked tentatively.
He shrugged.
“The physics department has lost a lot of funding, after everything that happened at CERN… Even though our experiments are nowhere near that level, people are still wary. They don’t want us doing anything.” He didn’t look at her as he talked keeping his eyes on the steps ahead of him instead.
“Shouldn’t you be getting even more funding now, to try to figure out what went wrong?” she asked. “Isn’t that what Sheldon’s working on?”
“Sheldon doesn’t even know what he’s working on,” Leonard said with a dry laugh. “He’s working with the calculations he saw in his vision, but he still doesn’t know what they are. There might be some connection to CERN, but…” he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders.
“His visions might not even mean anything,” Penny said, thinking of the article she’d read earlier that day. “Did you see today in the paper -”
“Yes, I saw it,” Leonard said, he voice harsher. “I’m sure you’re happy. Our visions don’t have to happen, just like you wanted.”
Penny wished she hadn’t brought up the article.
“Can we please just forget about the visions?”
“No!” Leonard snapped. “I can’t just forget about the vision, just like I can’t forget about that rodeo thing, or the fact that my girlfriend of eight months freaked out when I said I loved her.
“I wish I could forget. Do you know how much it hurts, to have that memory of the vision, and know it’s not real? To still see you every day as a constant reminder of what I’ll never have?”
“Hey, it hasn’t been a bed of roses for me either.”
“You’re the one who ended it! You’re the one who didn’t love me back -”
“I never said I didn’t love you!” Penny said, the words out of her mouth before she knew it.
“But you said -”
“I know, I said ‘thank you.’ And I said I didn’t want to say those words yet. But I never said I didn’t feel them.”
Leonard’s expression softened, but only for a moment, and then his wall was back up.
“So you loved me, but broke up with me anyway? Yeah, that sure sounds like love to me.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you -”
“Yeah, that turned out well.”
“I just did what I thought was best at the time,” she said weakly, wondering how this had turned into such a big mess.
“Well now I’m doing what I think’s best,” Leonard said. “I quit.”
She watched him climb the stairs ahead of her and disappear around the corner, and wondered if she’d just lost him forever.
*****
Penny was a mess at the restaurant the next day. She mixed up orders, knocked over two drinks (thankfully in the back, not at a table over a customer), and nearly collided with Bernadette, who was carrying a tray full of food.
“Are you okay?” Bernadette asked in the back, as they both had a moment of downtime as they waited for their orders to be finished.
“I’m fine,” Penny said shortly. She picked up her tray too quickly, and one plate on the edge would have slid off and fallen had Bernadette not quickly steadied it.
“What happened with Leonard?” Bernadette asked.
“Why does it have to be Leonard?”
“What happened with Leonard?”
Penny sighed, knowing there was no use in trying to deny it.
“Everything’s over. Done.”
“I thought everything was already over.”
“Well now it really is. He said he quits.”
Bernadette frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like Leonard.”
“Well it was. We fought, and he yelled, and he…” Penny trailed off, her throat getting tight. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry over him last night, and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. “I don’t even know why I care,” she said, trying to shrug it off.
“Because you still care about him,” Bernadette said softly. “Because you were always first and foremost friends. Because maybe, deep down, you were hoping that your vision might come true after all.”
Penny didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. They both knew Bernadette was right.
*****
It was her pride, she now knew, that kept her from fixing her relationship with Leonard earlier.
When he first said he loved her, she never intended to break up with him. Sure, she was scared, but she also knew Leonard was different than the other guys she’d dated. And he proved it, by telling her he’d be willing to wait. He was a little snarky about it at times, sure, but no one was perfect.
And then Wheaton got into her head with that stupid story of hers, and she’d overreacted, and everything had gone to hell. And she worked so hard to convince herself that she’d done the right thing that she started to believe it, instantly rejecting any idea that suggested otherwise.
They were better as friends. Friendships lasted, relationships didn’t. That’s what her history had always shone her.
Except now even their friendship had fallen apart, and she didn’t know how to get it back.
With nothing else to distract her, Penny threw herself back into acting. She had stopped her acting classes a while back, discouraged when nothing seemed to come of them, but now she signed back up, determined to make something of herself.
Life was short, she knew that now more than ever. And the things worth having were worth fighting for.
But Leonard continued to avoid her, true to his word, and she didn’t seek him out. She couldn’t see how that could ever be fixed.
*****
One of her auditions finally paid off, and she got a callback for a small role on a network TV show. Penny hadn’t been able to believe it when she got the phone call, and had jumped around in excitement in her apartment after hanging up the phone.
Maybe things were finally looking up. Maybe she was finally going to catch a break.
But her excitement was short-lived when she realized she had no one to celebrate with. Her first instinct had been to go share the news with Leonard, before remembering with a jolt that she wouldn’t be welcome there. Instead she settled for texting Bernadette, who was at work, and replied with her congratulations a few minutes later.
She considered calling home to tell her family, but decided that could wait. No need to get their hopes up over a callback, especially when her parents had never fully supported her decision to go after acting anyway.
Faintly she heard familiar voices in the hallway, and she tip-toed over to her door to peek through the peephole. Sure enough, it was Leonard and Sheldon, and judging from the bags Sheldon carried, they were returning from the comic book store.
Penny held her breath as she watched them, thinking how easy it would be to open the door, to share her good news with them. But she remained frozen in place, analyzing Leonard, trying to read his mood.
Sheldon was going off on some rant about the rising price of comic books, but Leonard didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He nodded, and threw in the occasional “uh-huh,” but Penny could tell that his mind was elsewhere.
Leonard unlocked their door and swung it open, Sheldon immediately entering and heading for his spot on the couch. But Leonard paused, looking back towards Penny’s apartment. For a wild moment Penny was afraid she was caught, before remembering that he had no way of knowing she was on the other side of the door. There was a sadness in his eyes, and slowly he turned to enter his own apartment.
The door shut, and he was gone.
Penny turned her back to her own door, sliding down against it until she was sitting on the ground. She’d face this callback first, she decided, and then try to see if there was anything she could do to fix things with Leonard. Or if not fix completely, at least progress to better than this. It was cowardly, she knew, to put them in that order, to wait, but it was the best she could do.
*****
Waiting to see the casting directors, Penny flipped through her script, silently mouthing the words, her stomach in knots. No matter how much she prepared, right before each audition, she always felt like she was close to breaking down. Her old doubts filled her mind - what if she wasn’t good enough? What if she was just wasting her time? What if they laughed?
Bernadette had helped her run her lines, and she’d stayed up late the night before, running through them again and again until she was confident that she knew them backwards and forwards. Now that the moment of truth was literally moments away, Penny wouldn’t have been surprised if she forgot her last name.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” a low voice said with a chuckle close to her right ear, and Penny jumped, not having realized that someone had sat down next to her. She looked up to see a man that she vaguely recognized from the waiting room of a couple previous auditions, smiling at her. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Penny shook her head.
“No, it’s fine - it was my fault, I’m just so -” she broke off, trying to find a word that would adequately describe her nerves, twisting her hands in her lap.
“You’ll probably need that later,” he said, reaching over and gently removing her script from her hands, rescuing it before it became a nothing more than a twisted paper ball.
“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling a blush of embarrassment cover her cheeks.
“You probably don’t have much to worry about,” he told her. “Right now you’re getting extra points for just showing up.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice that the waiting room is less crowded than they usually are?” he asked, gesturing towards the many empty chairs.
Penny shrugged.
“I didn’t really think about it.”
“Since the Flashforward, a lot of people have given up on auditions, at least for now, if no one’s vision revealed that they made it big in the next 6 months.”
“Well that’s stupid,” Penny said. Granted, she’d been slightly discouraged when she’d been unable to find any visions that mentioned her as an actress, but it ultimately had only made her more motivated to push forward and try to change that.
“And that mentality puts you ahead of the game,” he said with a nod. “Hey, when you’re done here, do you maybe want to -”
“Number four!” a bored-looking woman called, sticking her head out of a door.
“That’s me!” Penny said, jumping up and gathering her things. “Thanks for the advice, um -”
“Brian,” he said smiling, holding out his hand.
“Penny.” She shook his hand, turned towards the door, and took a deep breath before entering to face the unknown.
*****
Penny loved the release of pressure immediately after finishing an audition. It was like reaching the end of finals in high school - she knew that grades were coming soon, but she was just so glad to be done with all of the studying that she couldn’t bring herself to worry just yet.
She was surprised to see Brian still waiting outside the audition room.
“It went well, I’m guessing?” Brian asked, noting her wide smile.
“It went - it was one of my better ones, I think. I hope.”
He laughed.
“Well here’s hoping I’ll be seeing you around on the big screen.”
“I wish,” Penny said, with a slight roll of her eyes.
“Or maybe I could see you tonight?” he asked, smoothly continuing on. “At dinner?”
Penny froze, caught by surprise, her mind drawing a blank when it came to possible responses.
“I’m sorry, was that too cheesy?” Brian asked, misinterpreting her silence. “I think all the romantic comedies I’ve been auditioning for have had a bad influence on me.”
“No, you were fine,” Penny said, shaking her head. “It’s just…” she trailed off, not knowing how to finish her sentence. It was just what?
Brian was handsome, no doubt about that. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair. He seemed to have a good sense of humor, and was a clear cut above some of the idiots she’d dated in the past. By all accounts, she should have been thrilled at the invitation for dinner.
Instead, all she could think of was Leonard.
“It’s complicated,” she finally said.
Brian nodded, understanding spreading across his face.
“There’s another guy, huh?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t really know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she added, though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was apologizing for.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a smile, “I should have guessed. I just hope this guy realizes what a catch he’s got.”
Penny watched in silence as he walked away. Leonard hadn’t just ruined her for the idiots like Zack - he’d ruined her for all other men, period.
*****
She hit traffic coming home, and it was late by the time she finally made it to her apartment. The casting directors had told her they didn’t expect to make a decision for another day or two, so she still had time to relax before starting to stress out about the phone call.
After dropping her purse on the floor, Penny collapsed onto her couch, still wondering if she’d made the right decision about Brian. She was the one who ended things with Leonard. She was the one who held firm to that decision, even after the Flashforward suggested that things would turn around. So now why was she finding it so difficult to move on?
Deciding that she needed a good marathon to get her mind off of things, Penny pushed herself up off from the couch and towards her DVD shelf to find her Sex in the City season sets. But the season that she really wanted wasn’t there, and after a quick search through the rest of the living room, she headed to her bedroom mentally calculating the odds that she’d be successful in locating the DVDs within the mess.
Taking a quick stock of the various piles around her room, she remembered watching the DVDs on her computer while in bed, then tiredly tossing the set towards her closet. Which, unfortunately, was home to the biggest pile of them all.
Penny wondered if it was even worth searching, she did have 5 other season to choose from, after all, but no, she definitely wanted the one that was buried somewhere in front of her. Kneeling down, she began to sift through the clothes and shoes and accessories. After a minute her hand brushed cardboard, but her momentary excitement soon ended when she realized that it wasn’t the DVD packaging, but rather a much larger box that had been buried and forgotten about.
She had always thought it silly before when she heard of girls keeping a box of mementos from an old boyfriend. Suck it up and move on, she’d thought. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t do any good. And to be honest, usually after breakups the last thing Penny wanted was reminders of the latest guy who turned out to be nothing more than just another jerk.
But then there was Leonard, and even though it hurt too much to have the reminders of their relationship out in the open, Penny couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. There were some things that couldn’t be helped, like her new bed that he’d put together after they broke her old one, but everything else had gone into a cardboard box, which was then stuffed into the corner of her closet where she could avoid it and wouldn’t have to think about it.
Until now.
Penny carefully reached for the box, as if she was afraid something would jump out and bite her. She gave a dry chuckle as her mind suddenly flashed back to her conversations with Sheldon and Leonard about Schrödinger’s Cat. It felt like a whole lifetime ago. Now here was her box, and she wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find inside.
“Time to see if the cat’s alive,” she muttered to herself, carefully unfolding and pulling open the cardboard flaps on top.
She took her time as she pulled out the objects one by one, recalling the significance of each. There was a stack of cards Leonard had given her for various occasions throughout the 8 months they’d been together - her birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, even Pi Day, which she’d appreciated once he’d explained what it was. Beneath that was the book on psychics that Leonard had bought for her to read and tossed in the trash. She’d gone back later that night to retrieve it, feeling guilty that she wasn’t giving his side a fair chance after he was so willing to see her psychic.
Out came movie ticket stubs, post-it notes that Leonard had hastily written and left for her to find in the mornings, before he left for work, a few pictures of the two of them together…
One picture in particular caught her eye, of the two of them at the LA Country Fair, shortly after they’d started dating. While bored and waiting for a show to start, Penny suddenly realized they had no pictures of the two of them together, and immediately whipped out her camera and held it at arms length in front of them, snapping away.
Despite Penny’s instructions that he should look at the camera, in the picture he was smiling and looking sideways at her instead, pure joy in his expression. She felt like there was something important about this picture, something about it that was nagging at her memory, and then with a start she realized what it reminded her of - his expression when he’d told her he loved her. Had he loved her even then?
Setting the picture carefully aside, Penny dug for what she knew was at the bottom of the box, for it was the first thing she’d placed in it. Her hand grazed the velvet bag, and she carefully removed it, feeling the hard glass slide through the red material.
Leonard had shown her once how to look t the snowflake under his microscope, allowing her to see the intricate pattern of frozen ice, forever preserved upon the glass.
“It’s beautiful,” she’d breathed, amazed at the newly-discovered detail.
“Just like you,” Leonard had said in response, wrapping his arms around her gently from behind. Coming from another guy, it easily could have come across as just another throw-away line, but the sincerity in Leonard’s voice was clear, and Penny had wondered why she’d fought this attraction for so long when it felt so right.
Fingers trembling, Penny now slid the glass slide from the small bag. She held it up with care towards the light, squinting to find the snowflake in the center. She tried to imagine Leonard outside by himself in the freezing Arctic (though he’d never told her so, she’d assumed he worked on this by himself), carefully doing… whatever it was that had been required to preserve the snowflake. All because he knew…
But no, Penny realized suddenly. He hadn’t known she was waiting for him. She’d denied all her feelings before he’d left, at the time still internally debating whether or not to once again risk their friendship for the chance of something more. And even with that less-than-encouraging send off, Leonard had still cared enough to put the effort into bringing her this gift.
Leonard had always cared. Had always been waiting, giving her the time she needed.
But there was only so much waiting a person could take, and she was afraid she’d finally pushed him too far. Once again, Penny understood, she was on the cusp of a decision regarding her future with Leonard, but this time there was no safe option of an easy friendship like before. As much as she’d hoped they could eventually return to that friendship, now she saw it was all or nothing.
Holding the slide tightly, she stood up, her heart racing, suddenly knowing what she wanted - needed - to do. Recognizing the fact that she needed to act now, before she lost her nerve, she half-ran out of her apartment and towards Leonard’s across the hallway, not even stopping to step into her slippers.
Pausing only momentarily to take a steadying breath, Penny knocked on the door, waiting only a few seconds before impatiently knocking again. Her mind flashed back to the last time she’d impulsively gone to Leonard late at night, and she vowed to herself that this time would be different.
Finally Leonard opened the door. The initial surprise on his face at seeing her quickly turned to a guarded mistrust.
“What do you want?” he asked wearily.
“I - I don’t know,” she said, trying to form her feelings into words. “I just, I found this,” she held up the snowflake. “And it got me thinking… you made this for me, when you didn’t even know how I felt.”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said, shifting uncomfortably, unsure of where this was going.
“No, it was,” Penny said. “It is. You’re the sweetest, most understanding, caring guy, and you don’t deserve what I put you through. You deserve someone better, someone who won’t put you through crap.”
She took a deep breath, then hurried to continue before he could say anything.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, for everything. I was scared because just about every relationship that I’ve been in has ended badly, and I didn’t want that to happen again. It just seemed too good to be true, and I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“And I know that’s not an excuse, and it doesn’t make anything okay. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still scared, but I don’t want to keep wondering what-if.
“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us.”
“So what are you saying?” Leonard asked. “You want to try a romantic relationship again?”
“I don’t want to try,” Penny clarified. “I want to make it work. There is no try, remember?”
Leonard was still clearly hesitant, and frankly Penny didn’t blame him after everything she’d put him through. She hated that she’s turned him into this, someone just as afraid of getting hurt again as she was. Penny took a step closer, and took it as a good sign that he didn’t respond by taking one back.
“I love you,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes, willing him to believe her words. “I wish I’d been able to tell you before, but I was scared and confused… and I’ve been miserable the past few months, trying to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, but I’ve never been happier than when I was with you, and that has to mean something. And I know you said it’s over, and I’d understand if you want to stand by that, but if there’s any chance you’ll change your mind…”
Leonard was still silent, a hard look on his face. Penny sighed and started to turn away, hoping she could keep the tears at bay until she was back in her own apartment, but Leonard reached up to lightly grab her arm, holding her in place.
“You’re sure?” he asked, his voice low. “Because I can’t take - there’s only so much -”
Penny leaned in slowly to capture his lips for a small kiss, smiling as she felt his whole body relax against hers.
“I’m positive,” she said, pulling back just slightly. “I promise I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that. I love you,” she said again, looking straight into his eyes, determined to make him believe it.
Slowly a smile began to grow on his face, and he tentatively placed his hands on her waist.
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” he said, stepping even closer to eliminate the space between them.
“I think I might have an idea,” Penny said, placing her hands on his shoulders. This was what she’d been missing since May. This felt right. It had always felt right with Leonard, she’d just been too focused on her past relationships, too afraid that this would go south like the rest of them. But now that she was fully focused on the here and now, she knew there was no one else she’d rather be with.
She leaned in for another kiss, smiling at his eagerness as he reciprocated, starting slow, but building in passion.
*****
Penny woke up early on the morning of January the 21st. This was the day. All around the world, people would be waiting to see what would come true and what wouldn’t.
And starting tomorrow, the future was once again unknown. Just like it should be. She couldn’t wait.
But first, she had to get through today. She had a meeting in Hollywood with her agent (her agent - she still couldn’t believe she had one now!), rehearsals for the next episode of the TV show she’d just, and then a late audition for a big movie.
Leonard had been disappointed when she’d told him her schedule, and she knew why. She was disappointed too. She’d been looking forward to that moment she’d seen, the glimpse of the future that seemed too good to be true. Even if things were going great between them now, she still wanted that moment. It had come to mean so much, and she’d looked forward to it for so long.
She’d tried to keep the day free, but there was nothing she could do. The TV producers certainly weren’t going to reorganize their schedule just so she could spend the evening with her boyfriend. And her agent had pulled a lot of strings to get her this audition, and this was the only time available.
Knowing she needed to start getting ready soon if she was going to leave on time, Penny rolled out of bed, careful to not disturb Leonard. She slipped into the bathroom, and when she came out a few minutes later Leonard was awake, sitting up in bed.
“Morning,” he said, smiling.
“Morning,” she repeated, still thrilled over that fact that he got to be the first and last person she saw each day. No matter what happened in-between, she always had something to look forward to.
She leaned over the bed to kiss him, and he surprised her by grabbing her waist and pulling her down onto the bed with him.
“Leonard!” she laughed, only half-heartedly struggling to get away. “I need to get dressed!”
“I can help you with that,” he said, kissing her neck and sliding his hand underneath her shirt, resting it along her side.
Penny groaned.
“If I don’t get out of this bed now, I don’t know if I ever will.” Leonard continued to kiss her, reaching the one spot that made her shudder. “Then again, I’m sure there’ll be other auditions…” Penny started, but Leonard promptly cut her off.
“Don’t you dare, missy,” he said. “You’re going to that audition. You’ve finally made it this far, you’re not going to skip it, that’s no way to start a career.”
She knew that he knew she hadn’t been serious about skipping the audition, but she appreciated his support just the same. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips before sneaking out of his grasp.
“Thank you. And now I really do need to get ready, so no more distractions, please!”
Leonard got out of bed and headed to the kitchen, and by the time Penny was dressed he’d already toasted a bagel and spread cream cheese on it for her.
“Breakfast to go,” he said, handing it to her along with a travel mug of coffee.
Penny took it gratefully.
“I really do wish I didn’t have to work today,” she said.
“I know. Me too. But go break a leg out there!”
She smiled, and leaned over the counter for one more quick kiss before she left.
“Love you,” he said, the words still filling her stomach with butterflies, no matter how many times he told her.
“Love you too,” she said on her way out, loving how his smile somehow managed to grow even brighter every time she said those words. She had no idea why she had been so scared of this, this was the best feeling in the world.
*****
Penny’s day went as well as could be expected. Her meeting with her agent in the morning was to discuss the finer details of her contract with the TV show. Many of the technicalities went right over Penny’s head, and she was grateful to have found such a patient agent who was willing to explain things and guide her through the ins and outs of Hollywood.
She had barely enough time after the meeting to grab a quick bite for lunch before she was off to the studio for rehearsals. Her part was still rather minor, so there was a lot of sitting around and waiting, but Penny was thrilled just the same to finally be a part of something. Instead of retreating to her dressing room, she hung around on set, watching the others work, and exchanged friendly chit-chats with the cast and crew between takes. She was going to make the most of this experience while she could.
Her scenes were done with by 4:00, giving her two hours to kill before her audition at 6:00. She considered going over her lines again, but decided against it. Leonard had helped her go through them countless times already, and she felt comfortable with the script. No need to stress out even more right before the audition, no, she just needed to relax.
She was just about to pull away in her car when her cell phone rang. Putting the car back into park, she was confused when she saw it was her agent - she rarely called if they’d already spoken to each other earlier in the day.
“Hello?” Penny answered.
“Penny, an earlier spot’s just opened up for the audition, and they want to know if you can make it by 4:30.”
Penny double checked the time on her car’s dashboard. The location for the audition was just a few blocks away, but with LA traffic it was impossible to tell how long it could take.
“Um, I’m still at the studio, just got out of rehearsal,” Penny said.
“So is that a yes or a no? Let me tell you, I think they’d really appreciate it if you could make this earlier slot.”
“It’s a yes,” Penny said, pulling out of park. She dropped her phone to her lap and hit the speaker button. “I’m on my way.”
“Great, I’ll let them know,” her agent said, then promptly hung up the phone.
Penny slipped into the evening traffic, hoping she might get to spend some time with Leonard today after all.
*****
The audition went well, and the casting directors promised they’d be in touch. Penny couldn’t help but smile to herself; what had started out as an unwanted day was turning into a great one, with everything falling into place.
On the way home she stopped to buy a bottle of wine to celebrate, and a video store on the other side of the parking lot caught her eyes. On impulse she drove over, intending to have a quick look around for the movie from her dream, which she still hadn’t tracked down. Unfortunately, the store had closed early.
Penny was momentarily disappointed, but cheered herself up from the fact that she’d still get to spend the evening with Leonard. Really, that was all that mattered.
She almost called him to let him know she was on her way, but on second thought put the phone back down, deciding to surprise him.
*****
Leonard sat on his couch, mindlessly flipping through channels on the TV with the remote in his right hand, his left hand turning a small, black, velvet box over and over.
He hadn’t had the ring for long yet, barely a week. Bernadette had helped him pick it out, after he’d sworn her to secrecy. She wasn’t to breath a word of it to anyone, especially Howard, who she was once again dating. Thankfully, Bernadette apparently understood how horrible Howard was at keeping a secret, because none of the guys had said anything to Leonard implying that they knew what he was planning.
To be honest, he still wasn’t entirely sure himself. He knew he wanted to propose, knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Penny, and he was pretty sure that she wanted the same. But they’d only been dating for about six months, still not as long as the first time. Was it too soon to take the next step?
Sure, their relationship had a more solid foundation than before, and had continued to strengthen with every day they faced together. It was really just a matter of finding the right moment, and Leonard had no idea when that would be.
A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts, and he hastily stuffed the ring box in his pockets. The door was unlocked, he knew, and he didn’t have time to risk trying to run and hide the ring back in his sock drawer.
“Come in!” he called, making sure his jacket fell just right to cover the bump the box made in his pants pocket. He heard the door open, and was shocked when he looked up to see his girlfriend. “Penny! Why are you - what about your audition!”
“I already finished my audition,” she said, sitting down on the arm of the couch next to him. “They bumped me up, so I finished early.”
Leonard felt as though the ring box was burning a hole in his pocket, and suddenly remembered how he’d had it with him in his vision as well. He’d wondered at the time if that meant he was planning on proposing that night, but now he realized he’d just been nearly caught with it, forced to hide it.
“Oh!” he said, jumping up and remembering something else. “Look what I found today.”
He went to the kitchen counter, and came back holding a plastic bag and handed it to Penny. She took it curiously, then gasped when she took the item out.
“It’s the movie!” she exclaimed, jumping up to give him a hug. “Where did you find it?”
“It was in one of those bargain bins at the grocery store, in the middle of the aisle,” Leonard said. “I wasn’t even going to look, but my cart wheel knocked against the bin as I passed it, and this one was loose on top and fell down.” He shrugged. “I knew we couldn’t watch it tonight, but I thought it’d still be fun for another night.”
“Well now we can watch it tonight!” Penny said, taking a hold of Leonard’s arm and dragging him towards the door. “I’ve even got the wine!”
Leonard smiled at her eagerness. Considering how much she’d originally fought against the future in the first few weeks after the Flashforward, he never would have guessed how much she’d be embracing this moment now, wanting to make sure everything was exactly right.
It wasn’t long before they were curled up together on Penny’s couch, the lights dimmed, movie playing on her television.
“Do you even have any idea what the movie’s about?” Leonard asked as the opening credits began to play.
“No idea,” Penny said, taking a sip of her wine.
It turned out to be a pretty poorly made movie. It was meant to be a drama, but Penny found herself laughing instead.
“Why in the world did I want to watch this movie?” she asked, horrified by the acting.
“Because we were watching it in the vision?”
“But why did I want to watch it then, in the first place?!”
Leonard frowned.
“Well, I could give you a partial answer that would reference time travel theories, and alternate dimensions, and other mind boggling stuff…”
“Never mind,” Penny said. “I think I’ve had enough of future discussion to last a lifetime.”
She thought back to when she’d first had the vision, how confused she’d been. She wondered if they still would have been sitting here without that glimpse of the future, or if it was seeing the future that helped push them in the right direction.
These were the moments she loved most with Leonard. Just the two of them enjoying each other’s company. She wondered how she’d managed to go so long without this, and how she could have let it go after having it.
“I love you,” she said suddenly, turning around to look at him. She wasn’t thinking about the vision anymore, just how much she cared about the man behind her, and how she never wanted to go another day without him in her life.
Leonard smiled, and then his next words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Marry me.”
It was a toss up between who was more surprised, Leonard or Penny.
“Leonard -”
Gone were his plans of waiting for the perfect moment, it suddenly occurred to him that this was the perfect moment. He dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out the small black box.
“I should probably do this properly,” he muttered, sliding off the couch onto the floor, where he balanced on one knee. Penny had gone silent upon seeing the box, and now had a hand covering her mouth in shock.
“I love you,” Leonard said, cracking open the box and carefully removing the ring. “I’ve never really known love until I met you. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you. Penny, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Penny squealed. “Yes, of course, I will marry you!”
She jumped off the couch, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.
When the kiss broke, Leonard gently took her left hand, and slid the ring onto her finger.
“It’s beautiful!” Penny said, admiring the diamonds. “Did you know?” she asked suddenly, looking back up at Leonard.
He shook his head, knowing what she was referring to.
“I’d felt the box in my pocket, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was.”
“Funny how we could both see the future, and still be surprised.”
“I never needed a vision to know you were in my future.”
Penny smiled and kissed him again, overwhelmed with joy.
She didn’t know what the next day would bring, or the day after that. But the one thing she was certain of was that whatever the future brought, she’d be facing it with Leonard, and that was all that mattered.
Pairing(s): Leonard/Penny
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory and Flashforward (the novel), but only containing characters from TBBT
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some spoilers for Flashforward
Word Count: 15,001
Summary: Disaster strikes when an experiment at at CERN causes everyone in the world to blackout for two minutes. But during that time, everyone has a vision of their lives 6 months in the future. A wrench is thrown into Leonard and Penny's attempts to fix their post-breakup friendship when their visions show them together once again. Now they must decide whether or not they believe the visions to be the definite future, or just a possibility. Can Penny overcome her fear of being hurt? And will Leonard be willing to give her another chance if she does?
Part 1 here
*****
It was three days before the Cheesecake Factory was open again for business, and even then it was for only in the evening for dinner. With the cause of the Flashforward still a mystery, many people were afraid that it would happen again, and were hesitant to leave the safety of their homes.
Penny had to leave her apartment 45 minutes before her shift started to ensure she’d make it on time, as she had to walk, but she didn’t mind much. The alternative would be sitting alone at home, desperately trying to distract herself.
Leonard’s car had remained unscathed, she knew, but she was still avoiding seeing him while she tried to sort through her feelings. The public buses had started running again the day before, but only certain routes, and unfortunately the Cheesecake Factory wasn’t on any of them.
She walked quickly, eager to reach the restaurant, giving a small smile and nod to the few people she passed along the way. During her recent jogs she’d noticed an increased sense of camaraderie among strangers on the street, and small greetings were exchanged where before there would have been silence. Pessimistically she doubted this change would last for long, but it was nice while it lasted.
When she finally got to the restaurant she hoped the work would keep her mind occupied, but the dinner rush never came. People trickled in and out, but it was nowhere near the normal evening frenzy. Normally Penny would kill for a shift like this, but now she just wanted to work and try to forget.
Her break finally came, and Penny retreated to the back room, wishing she could just go back home. She had just sat down when Bernadette entered the room.
“Hey,” Penny said casually, but Bernadette hurried over and engulfed her in a hug.
“What - is everything okay?” Penny asked, wondering what had come over the woman. They’d always been friendly, and had gotten to know each other even better when Bernadette was dating Howard, but they’d still never been especially close.
Bernadette let go and took a step back.
“Sorry, I’ve just been all over the place,” she said, her voice slightly strained. “In my, uh, vision as people are calling them, I was checking the schedule at work. I know it sounds silly, but your name wasn’t on it.” Penny and Bernadette’s last names started with the same letter, and were always right next to each other on the schedule. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then after everything… I started to wonder if maybe something happened to you.”
Penny was touched that Bernadette cared so much.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she reassured her. “Nothing but a small cut,” she added, pointing unnecessarily to the bandage.
Bernadette nodded.
“Howard told me you were fine. It’s just - seeing you, I guess, brought all the emotion back.”
“Wait - you talked to Howard?” Penny was surprised. As far as she knew, there hadn’t been any contact since the breakup two months ago. Bernadette had told her it was mutual, but didn’t want to go into any more detail than that. Penny hadn’t pressured her, but she’d suspected that it was more one-sided than Bernadette had let on.
“He called to see if I was okay,” Bernadette said, blushing ever so slightly. “He’s a sweet guy.”
“Yeah, sweet,” Penny deadpanned, still confused by what Bernadette had seen in him.
“So do you know where you’ll be working in six months?” Bernadette asked. “I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone!”
Penny rolled her eyes.
“If my time’s really coming to an end at the Cheesecake Factory, it’s news to me. I’ve got no idea.”
“Maybe you move?” Bernadette suggested. “Were you somewhere else in your vision?”
Penny shook her head.
“No, I was definitely in my apartment.” She paused, suddenly feeling an urge to tell Bernadette about what she saw, to have a sounding board to bounce thoughts off of. She was desperate to talk it over with someone, and Bernadette was really the best girl friend she had right now. “Actually,” she said, drawing out the word, “Leonard was there too.”
Bernadette gasped in excitement.
“Really! What happened?”
“Well we were on my couch, watching a movie, I didn’t recognize it. But anyway, I was leaning against him and couldn’t see him at first, until I finally turned around.”
“And?” Bernadette pressed when Penny paused.
“I told him I loved him,” Penny said, her heart racing at the memory. “And he said he loved me too, and we almost kissed, but then it ended.”
Bernadette squealed.
“I knew you two would get back together! You’re just too perfect for each other.” She sighed, “I wish I got to see something cool. All I got was my work schedule for the week six months from now. Big whoop.”
“I thought you told me I was making the right decision when I broke up with Leonard!” Penny said accusingly.
“Well you were running scared,” Bernadette said. “You needed time to figure things out. It wouldn’t have done any good if I’d tried to convince you otherwise.”
“I wasn’t scared!” Penny denied hotly.
Bernadette just smiled.
“I wasn’t!” Penny repeated. “I just - we’re too different. It wouldn’t have lasted. I mean, look at who he’s been involved with before - Leslie Winkle, Doctor Stephanie, that slut-bunny scientist… Eventually he’s going to realize that’s what he wants.”
“A skanky woman who uses him for one night, then hits on his friends?” Bernadette asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what Leonard wants.”
“Fine, bad example there. But Leslie, Stephanie - he’s going to want someone smarter. Not a waitress who couldn’t even finish community college.”
“That’s a little unfair to Leonard, don’t you think?” Bernadette asked softly. “Not even giving him the chance to prove otherwise. And besides, he doesn’t fit the mold of who you’ve previously dated either, right? But that didn’t matter to you.”
It did matter, Penny thought, but not in the same way. Leonard was different, but he was better. He was safe.
Until he’d told her that he loved her, and with a shock she’d realized she might feel the same. And then suddenly he was as dangerous as every other man she’d ever dated, holding her heart, with the power to break it.
So maybe she was scared. But hat didn’t mean that she was wrong.
*****
Penny was surprised the next day to find the guys at their usual table for dinner. With everything going on she had lost track of the days, but now that she took a moment to think about it she realized it was Tuesday. Not even a worldwide disaster could deter Sheldon from his Tuesday cheeseburger at the Cheesecake Factory.
She took a deep breath before approaching their table, hoping that Leonard wouldn’t try to discuss the visions again with the rest of the guys around. They hardly noticed her, though, as they were so engrossed in their conversation.
“There’s no way they could have predicted what would happen,” Leonard was saying to Sheldon.
“Of course they couldn’t, with their inferior minds, but I’m sure if I had been there to look over their plans -”
“You honestly think you’re smarter than all the scientists combined at CERN?” Howard cut in, exasperated.
“I don’t think, I know.”
“Uh, CERN?” Penny asked, finally catching the guys attention. “Isn’t that the place in Switzerland, with the collider thingy?”
“The Large Hadron Collider,” Sheldon automatically corrected. “They made an announcement today that they believe one of their experiments caused the Flashforward.”
“One of their experiments?” Penny frowned. “What in the world were they doing?”
“They were looking for the Higgs boson particle.”
Penny stared at him blankly.
“They were attempting to recreate conditions that haven’t existed since the big bang,” he elaborated.
She still started.
“They were making really tiny things crash into each other at really fast speeds,” Leonard finally offered.
“That’s all?” Penny asked. “Something smashes into something else, and it knocks everybody out?”
Leonard shook his head.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that, there’s an incredible amount of energy involved. And really, they don’t know what caused it, but the fact that they were doing their experiment at exact the same time as the Flashforward… I agree with them that they’re the most likely cause. I actually can’t believe I didn’t think of them sooner, I knew that they were supposed to try their experiment that day, I guess in the rush with everything else I just forgot -”
Raj quickly whispered in Howard’s ear, who nodded and repeated what he said.
“Oh yeah, they issued a statement that day that said their experiment was delayed, and then ultimately cancelled after the Flashforward.”
“So that’s it?” Penny asked. “We don’t have to worry anymore?”
Leonard shrugged.
“As long as they don’t do whatever they were doing again, we should be safe.”
“Of course, we never would have been in danger if you had just taken me to CERN in the first place,” Sheldon said. “One look at their plans, and I’m sure I would have seen the problem.”
Penny looked down at her notepad, feeling the conversation drift into dangerous territory. CERN and Switzerland and Valentine’s Day… too many painful memories.
“Sheldon,” Leonard said, a warning tone in his voice. “Can we please not get into this again.”
“This is just one more reason why your and Penny’s relationship was ill-conceived,” Sheldon continued, ignoring Leonard’s protests.
“Excuse me?” Penny sputtered, looking up in shock. “You can’t possibly be blaming us for everything.”
“Of course not,” Sheldon said, “Don’t think so highly of yourselves. Clearly the scientists at CERN are to blame. I just wish I could have helped them see the error of their ways.”
Penny rolled her eyes, it was pointless to try to argue the point further.
“How about I just take your order.”
*****
With CERN’s reassurance that the threat of another Flashforward was gone, slowly but surely, life began to return to normal. At least, as close to normal as possible. People were more willing to leave their homes, and the streets were once again busy with cars and traffic.
Still, the visions and glimpse of the future was being hotly debated, whether or not the future was fixed or not. Penny closely followed the discussions, and did her best to understand as the experts talked about block universes, and alternate timelines, and even, she was amused to hear one day, Schrodinger’s Cat.
Much of her free time at home was now spent online browsing the Mosaic Project, the website database that CERN had built to give people a place to share their visions. She had a somewhat love/hate relationship with the site; she still didn’t - couldn’t - believe that the visions showed a definite future, but she found herself drawn to the site anyway, too curious to ignore it.
One of the first things she’d done was search for her own name, wondering if maybe her big acting break supposedly came sometime within the next six months. When that led to nothing, she began reading entries at random, finding a strange fascination in the stories.
She mentally catalogued as she went, attempting to find visions that could already be proven true to false, but so far it was impossible to nail them down as one way or the other. The future was still open to all possibilities, as far as she could tell.
With the return to regular life, Leonard and Penny were slowly drifting back into their tentative pre-Flashforward friendship. Back to when they only passed each other in the hallways, and exchanged brief pleasantries, if even that. Penny hated it.
It was Thursday when they finally had a solid answer about the visions. “Man With Confirmed Vision Commits Suicide,” the newspaper headline read across the front page, with a sub headline of “Future Not Fixed.”
Penny skimmed the article skeptically during her break at work. Business had finally picked up again, and they were nearly as busy as ever, meaning she had precious few minutes before she had to be back out on the floor.
There had been one other report of a man who claimed to have a vision, yet died the day after the Flashforward. But there were doubts as to the validity of what he claimed to see, and so no conclusive decision was made.
But his young man, Dimitrios Procopides, from Greece, had seen his future. Others had seen him in their visions. Now he was dead, and those visions had no way of becoming a reality.
“Did you see this?” Penny asked Bernadette, holding up the paper as she walked into the break room.
Bernadette shook her head.
“You know, for someone who doesn’t believe the visions show the future, you’re sure investing a lot of time into them,” she commented.
“I’m not invested,” Penny said, folding the newspaper, “just curious.”
“Curious about events that aren’t going to happen?”
“I just need to know that I made the right decision,” Penny said, sweeping out of the room and back into the busy restaurant, welcoming the crowded tables that would keep her preoccupied for hours to come.
*****
That night as she returned home to her apartment building, Penny ran into Leonard in the entrance way, as he was checking his mail.
Even though she’d already checked her box earlier on her way out, Penny went over to check it again.
“Hey,” she said, giving him a smile.
“Hey,” he said, barely glancing up at her before looking back at his mail. He headed towards the stairs.
“Wait up a sec,” Penny said, opening her mailbox only to slam it shut just as quickly. “I’ll walk up with you.”
Leonard waited silently, then when she was next to him began the long climb up the stairs.
She wasn’t sure why she was trying now, after days of avoiding each other, but she felt like she had to do something to fill the persistent ache in her stomach.
“How’s it going at work?” she asked tentatively.
He shrugged.
“The physics department has lost a lot of funding, after everything that happened at CERN… Even though our experiments are nowhere near that level, people are still wary. They don’t want us doing anything.” He didn’t look at her as he talked keeping his eyes on the steps ahead of him instead.
“Shouldn’t you be getting even more funding now, to try to figure out what went wrong?” she asked. “Isn’t that what Sheldon’s working on?”
“Sheldon doesn’t even know what he’s working on,” Leonard said with a dry laugh. “He’s working with the calculations he saw in his vision, but he still doesn’t know what they are. There might be some connection to CERN, but…” he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders.
“His visions might not even mean anything,” Penny said, thinking of the article she’d read earlier that day. “Did you see today in the paper -”
“Yes, I saw it,” Leonard said, he voice harsher. “I’m sure you’re happy. Our visions don’t have to happen, just like you wanted.”
Penny wished she hadn’t brought up the article.
“Can we please just forget about the visions?”
“No!” Leonard snapped. “I can’t just forget about the vision, just like I can’t forget about that rodeo thing, or the fact that my girlfriend of eight months freaked out when I said I loved her.
“I wish I could forget. Do you know how much it hurts, to have that memory of the vision, and know it’s not real? To still see you every day as a constant reminder of what I’ll never have?”
“Hey, it hasn’t been a bed of roses for me either.”
“You’re the one who ended it! You’re the one who didn’t love me back -”
“I never said I didn’t love you!” Penny said, the words out of her mouth before she knew it.
“But you said -”
“I know, I said ‘thank you.’ And I said I didn’t want to say those words yet. But I never said I didn’t feel them.”
Leonard’s expression softened, but only for a moment, and then his wall was back up.
“So you loved me, but broke up with me anyway? Yeah, that sure sounds like love to me.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you -”
“Yeah, that turned out well.”
“I just did what I thought was best at the time,” she said weakly, wondering how this had turned into such a big mess.
“Well now I’m doing what I think’s best,” Leonard said. “I quit.”
She watched him climb the stairs ahead of her and disappear around the corner, and wondered if she’d just lost him forever.
*****
Penny was a mess at the restaurant the next day. She mixed up orders, knocked over two drinks (thankfully in the back, not at a table over a customer), and nearly collided with Bernadette, who was carrying a tray full of food.
“Are you okay?” Bernadette asked in the back, as they both had a moment of downtime as they waited for their orders to be finished.
“I’m fine,” Penny said shortly. She picked up her tray too quickly, and one plate on the edge would have slid off and fallen had Bernadette not quickly steadied it.
“What happened with Leonard?” Bernadette asked.
“Why does it have to be Leonard?”
“What happened with Leonard?”
Penny sighed, knowing there was no use in trying to deny it.
“Everything’s over. Done.”
“I thought everything was already over.”
“Well now it really is. He said he quits.”
Bernadette frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like Leonard.”
“Well it was. We fought, and he yelled, and he…” Penny trailed off, her throat getting tight. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry over him last night, and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. “I don’t even know why I care,” she said, trying to shrug it off.
“Because you still care about him,” Bernadette said softly. “Because you were always first and foremost friends. Because maybe, deep down, you were hoping that your vision might come true after all.”
Penny didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. They both knew Bernadette was right.
*****
It was her pride, she now knew, that kept her from fixing her relationship with Leonard earlier.
When he first said he loved her, she never intended to break up with him. Sure, she was scared, but she also knew Leonard was different than the other guys she’d dated. And he proved it, by telling her he’d be willing to wait. He was a little snarky about it at times, sure, but no one was perfect.
And then Wheaton got into her head with that stupid story of hers, and she’d overreacted, and everything had gone to hell. And she worked so hard to convince herself that she’d done the right thing that she started to believe it, instantly rejecting any idea that suggested otherwise.
They were better as friends. Friendships lasted, relationships didn’t. That’s what her history had always shone her.
Except now even their friendship had fallen apart, and she didn’t know how to get it back.
With nothing else to distract her, Penny threw herself back into acting. She had stopped her acting classes a while back, discouraged when nothing seemed to come of them, but now she signed back up, determined to make something of herself.
Life was short, she knew that now more than ever. And the things worth having were worth fighting for.
But Leonard continued to avoid her, true to his word, and she didn’t seek him out. She couldn’t see how that could ever be fixed.
*****
One of her auditions finally paid off, and she got a callback for a small role on a network TV show. Penny hadn’t been able to believe it when she got the phone call, and had jumped around in excitement in her apartment after hanging up the phone.
Maybe things were finally looking up. Maybe she was finally going to catch a break.
But her excitement was short-lived when she realized she had no one to celebrate with. Her first instinct had been to go share the news with Leonard, before remembering with a jolt that she wouldn’t be welcome there. Instead she settled for texting Bernadette, who was at work, and replied with her congratulations a few minutes later.
She considered calling home to tell her family, but decided that could wait. No need to get their hopes up over a callback, especially when her parents had never fully supported her decision to go after acting anyway.
Faintly she heard familiar voices in the hallway, and she tip-toed over to her door to peek through the peephole. Sure enough, it was Leonard and Sheldon, and judging from the bags Sheldon carried, they were returning from the comic book store.
Penny held her breath as she watched them, thinking how easy it would be to open the door, to share her good news with them. But she remained frozen in place, analyzing Leonard, trying to read his mood.
Sheldon was going off on some rant about the rising price of comic books, but Leonard didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He nodded, and threw in the occasional “uh-huh,” but Penny could tell that his mind was elsewhere.
Leonard unlocked their door and swung it open, Sheldon immediately entering and heading for his spot on the couch. But Leonard paused, looking back towards Penny’s apartment. For a wild moment Penny was afraid she was caught, before remembering that he had no way of knowing she was on the other side of the door. There was a sadness in his eyes, and slowly he turned to enter his own apartment.
The door shut, and he was gone.
Penny turned her back to her own door, sliding down against it until she was sitting on the ground. She’d face this callback first, she decided, and then try to see if there was anything she could do to fix things with Leonard. Or if not fix completely, at least progress to better than this. It was cowardly, she knew, to put them in that order, to wait, but it was the best she could do.
*****
Waiting to see the casting directors, Penny flipped through her script, silently mouthing the words, her stomach in knots. No matter how much she prepared, right before each audition, she always felt like she was close to breaking down. Her old doubts filled her mind - what if she wasn’t good enough? What if she was just wasting her time? What if they laughed?
Bernadette had helped her run her lines, and she’d stayed up late the night before, running through them again and again until she was confident that she knew them backwards and forwards. Now that the moment of truth was literally moments away, Penny wouldn’t have been surprised if she forgot her last name.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” a low voice said with a chuckle close to her right ear, and Penny jumped, not having realized that someone had sat down next to her. She looked up to see a man that she vaguely recognized from the waiting room of a couple previous auditions, smiling at her. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Penny shook her head.
“No, it’s fine - it was my fault, I’m just so -” she broke off, trying to find a word that would adequately describe her nerves, twisting her hands in her lap.
“You’ll probably need that later,” he said, reaching over and gently removing her script from her hands, rescuing it before it became a nothing more than a twisted paper ball.
“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling a blush of embarrassment cover her cheeks.
“You probably don’t have much to worry about,” he told her. “Right now you’re getting extra points for just showing up.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice that the waiting room is less crowded than they usually are?” he asked, gesturing towards the many empty chairs.
Penny shrugged.
“I didn’t really think about it.”
“Since the Flashforward, a lot of people have given up on auditions, at least for now, if no one’s vision revealed that they made it big in the next 6 months.”
“Well that’s stupid,” Penny said. Granted, she’d been slightly discouraged when she’d been unable to find any visions that mentioned her as an actress, but it ultimately had only made her more motivated to push forward and try to change that.
“And that mentality puts you ahead of the game,” he said with a nod. “Hey, when you’re done here, do you maybe want to -”
“Number four!” a bored-looking woman called, sticking her head out of a door.
“That’s me!” Penny said, jumping up and gathering her things. “Thanks for the advice, um -”
“Brian,” he said smiling, holding out his hand.
“Penny.” She shook his hand, turned towards the door, and took a deep breath before entering to face the unknown.
*****
Penny loved the release of pressure immediately after finishing an audition. It was like reaching the end of finals in high school - she knew that grades were coming soon, but she was just so glad to be done with all of the studying that she couldn’t bring herself to worry just yet.
She was surprised to see Brian still waiting outside the audition room.
“It went well, I’m guessing?” Brian asked, noting her wide smile.
“It went - it was one of my better ones, I think. I hope.”
He laughed.
“Well here’s hoping I’ll be seeing you around on the big screen.”
“I wish,” Penny said, with a slight roll of her eyes.
“Or maybe I could see you tonight?” he asked, smoothly continuing on. “At dinner?”
Penny froze, caught by surprise, her mind drawing a blank when it came to possible responses.
“I’m sorry, was that too cheesy?” Brian asked, misinterpreting her silence. “I think all the romantic comedies I’ve been auditioning for have had a bad influence on me.”
“No, you were fine,” Penny said, shaking her head. “It’s just…” she trailed off, not knowing how to finish her sentence. It was just what?
Brian was handsome, no doubt about that. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair. He seemed to have a good sense of humor, and was a clear cut above some of the idiots she’d dated in the past. By all accounts, she should have been thrilled at the invitation for dinner.
Instead, all she could think of was Leonard.
“It’s complicated,” she finally said.
Brian nodded, understanding spreading across his face.
“There’s another guy, huh?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t really know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she added, though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was apologizing for.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a smile, “I should have guessed. I just hope this guy realizes what a catch he’s got.”
Penny watched in silence as he walked away. Leonard hadn’t just ruined her for the idiots like Zack - he’d ruined her for all other men, period.
*****
She hit traffic coming home, and it was late by the time she finally made it to her apartment. The casting directors had told her they didn’t expect to make a decision for another day or two, so she still had time to relax before starting to stress out about the phone call.
After dropping her purse on the floor, Penny collapsed onto her couch, still wondering if she’d made the right decision about Brian. She was the one who ended things with Leonard. She was the one who held firm to that decision, even after the Flashforward suggested that things would turn around. So now why was she finding it so difficult to move on?
Deciding that she needed a good marathon to get her mind off of things, Penny pushed herself up off from the couch and towards her DVD shelf to find her Sex in the City season sets. But the season that she really wanted wasn’t there, and after a quick search through the rest of the living room, she headed to her bedroom mentally calculating the odds that she’d be successful in locating the DVDs within the mess.
Taking a quick stock of the various piles around her room, she remembered watching the DVDs on her computer while in bed, then tiredly tossing the set towards her closet. Which, unfortunately, was home to the biggest pile of them all.
Penny wondered if it was even worth searching, she did have 5 other season to choose from, after all, but no, she definitely wanted the one that was buried somewhere in front of her. Kneeling down, she began to sift through the clothes and shoes and accessories. After a minute her hand brushed cardboard, but her momentary excitement soon ended when she realized that it wasn’t the DVD packaging, but rather a much larger box that had been buried and forgotten about.
She had always thought it silly before when she heard of girls keeping a box of mementos from an old boyfriend. Suck it up and move on, she’d thought. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t do any good. And to be honest, usually after breakups the last thing Penny wanted was reminders of the latest guy who turned out to be nothing more than just another jerk.
But then there was Leonard, and even though it hurt too much to have the reminders of their relationship out in the open, Penny couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. There were some things that couldn’t be helped, like her new bed that he’d put together after they broke her old one, but everything else had gone into a cardboard box, which was then stuffed into the corner of her closet where she could avoid it and wouldn’t have to think about it.
Until now.
Penny carefully reached for the box, as if she was afraid something would jump out and bite her. She gave a dry chuckle as her mind suddenly flashed back to her conversations with Sheldon and Leonard about Schrödinger’s Cat. It felt like a whole lifetime ago. Now here was her box, and she wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find inside.
“Time to see if the cat’s alive,” she muttered to herself, carefully unfolding and pulling open the cardboard flaps on top.
She took her time as she pulled out the objects one by one, recalling the significance of each. There was a stack of cards Leonard had given her for various occasions throughout the 8 months they’d been together - her birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, even Pi Day, which she’d appreciated once he’d explained what it was. Beneath that was the book on psychics that Leonard had bought for her to read and tossed in the trash. She’d gone back later that night to retrieve it, feeling guilty that she wasn’t giving his side a fair chance after he was so willing to see her psychic.
Out came movie ticket stubs, post-it notes that Leonard had hastily written and left for her to find in the mornings, before he left for work, a few pictures of the two of them together…
One picture in particular caught her eye, of the two of them at the LA Country Fair, shortly after they’d started dating. While bored and waiting for a show to start, Penny suddenly realized they had no pictures of the two of them together, and immediately whipped out her camera and held it at arms length in front of them, snapping away.
Despite Penny’s instructions that he should look at the camera, in the picture he was smiling and looking sideways at her instead, pure joy in his expression. She felt like there was something important about this picture, something about it that was nagging at her memory, and then with a start she realized what it reminded her of - his expression when he’d told her he loved her. Had he loved her even then?
Setting the picture carefully aside, Penny dug for what she knew was at the bottom of the box, for it was the first thing she’d placed in it. Her hand grazed the velvet bag, and she carefully removed it, feeling the hard glass slide through the red material.
Leonard had shown her once how to look t the snowflake under his microscope, allowing her to see the intricate pattern of frozen ice, forever preserved upon the glass.
“It’s beautiful,” she’d breathed, amazed at the newly-discovered detail.
“Just like you,” Leonard had said in response, wrapping his arms around her gently from behind. Coming from another guy, it easily could have come across as just another throw-away line, but the sincerity in Leonard’s voice was clear, and Penny had wondered why she’d fought this attraction for so long when it felt so right.
Fingers trembling, Penny now slid the glass slide from the small bag. She held it up with care towards the light, squinting to find the snowflake in the center. She tried to imagine Leonard outside by himself in the freezing Arctic (though he’d never told her so, she’d assumed he worked on this by himself), carefully doing… whatever it was that had been required to preserve the snowflake. All because he knew…
But no, Penny realized suddenly. He hadn’t known she was waiting for him. She’d denied all her feelings before he’d left, at the time still internally debating whether or not to once again risk their friendship for the chance of something more. And even with that less-than-encouraging send off, Leonard had still cared enough to put the effort into bringing her this gift.
Leonard had always cared. Had always been waiting, giving her the time she needed.
But there was only so much waiting a person could take, and she was afraid she’d finally pushed him too far. Once again, Penny understood, she was on the cusp of a decision regarding her future with Leonard, but this time there was no safe option of an easy friendship like before. As much as she’d hoped they could eventually return to that friendship, now she saw it was all or nothing.
Holding the slide tightly, she stood up, her heart racing, suddenly knowing what she wanted - needed - to do. Recognizing the fact that she needed to act now, before she lost her nerve, she half-ran out of her apartment and towards Leonard’s across the hallway, not even stopping to step into her slippers.
Pausing only momentarily to take a steadying breath, Penny knocked on the door, waiting only a few seconds before impatiently knocking again. Her mind flashed back to the last time she’d impulsively gone to Leonard late at night, and she vowed to herself that this time would be different.
Finally Leonard opened the door. The initial surprise on his face at seeing her quickly turned to a guarded mistrust.
“What do you want?” he asked wearily.
“I - I don’t know,” she said, trying to form her feelings into words. “I just, I found this,” she held up the snowflake. “And it got me thinking… you made this for me, when you didn’t even know how I felt.”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said, shifting uncomfortably, unsure of where this was going.
“No, it was,” Penny said. “It is. You’re the sweetest, most understanding, caring guy, and you don’t deserve what I put you through. You deserve someone better, someone who won’t put you through crap.”
She took a deep breath, then hurried to continue before he could say anything.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, for everything. I was scared because just about every relationship that I’ve been in has ended badly, and I didn’t want that to happen again. It just seemed too good to be true, and I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“And I know that’s not an excuse, and it doesn’t make anything okay. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still scared, but I don’t want to keep wondering what-if.
“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us.”
“So what are you saying?” Leonard asked. “You want to try a romantic relationship again?”
“I don’t want to try,” Penny clarified. “I want to make it work. There is no try, remember?”
Leonard was still clearly hesitant, and frankly Penny didn’t blame him after everything she’d put him through. She hated that she’s turned him into this, someone just as afraid of getting hurt again as she was. Penny took a step closer, and took it as a good sign that he didn’t respond by taking one back.
“I love you,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes, willing him to believe her words. “I wish I’d been able to tell you before, but I was scared and confused… and I’ve been miserable the past few months, trying to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, but I’ve never been happier than when I was with you, and that has to mean something. And I know you said it’s over, and I’d understand if you want to stand by that, but if there’s any chance you’ll change your mind…”
Leonard was still silent, a hard look on his face. Penny sighed and started to turn away, hoping she could keep the tears at bay until she was back in her own apartment, but Leonard reached up to lightly grab her arm, holding her in place.
“You’re sure?” he asked, his voice low. “Because I can’t take - there’s only so much -”
Penny leaned in slowly to capture his lips for a small kiss, smiling as she felt his whole body relax against hers.
“I’m positive,” she said, pulling back just slightly. “I promise I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that. I love you,” she said again, looking straight into his eyes, determined to make him believe it.
Slowly a smile began to grow on his face, and he tentatively placed his hands on her waist.
“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” he said, stepping even closer to eliminate the space between them.
“I think I might have an idea,” Penny said, placing her hands on his shoulders. This was what she’d been missing since May. This felt right. It had always felt right with Leonard, she’d just been too focused on her past relationships, too afraid that this would go south like the rest of them. But now that she was fully focused on the here and now, she knew there was no one else she’d rather be with.
She leaned in for another kiss, smiling at his eagerness as he reciprocated, starting slow, but building in passion.
*****
Penny woke up early on the morning of January the 21st. This was the day. All around the world, people would be waiting to see what would come true and what wouldn’t.
And starting tomorrow, the future was once again unknown. Just like it should be. She couldn’t wait.
But first, she had to get through today. She had a meeting in Hollywood with her agent (her agent - she still couldn’t believe she had one now!), rehearsals for the next episode of the TV show she’d just, and then a late audition for a big movie.
Leonard had been disappointed when she’d told him her schedule, and she knew why. She was disappointed too. She’d been looking forward to that moment she’d seen, the glimpse of the future that seemed too good to be true. Even if things were going great between them now, she still wanted that moment. It had come to mean so much, and she’d looked forward to it for so long.
She’d tried to keep the day free, but there was nothing she could do. The TV producers certainly weren’t going to reorganize their schedule just so she could spend the evening with her boyfriend. And her agent had pulled a lot of strings to get her this audition, and this was the only time available.
Knowing she needed to start getting ready soon if she was going to leave on time, Penny rolled out of bed, careful to not disturb Leonard. She slipped into the bathroom, and when she came out a few minutes later Leonard was awake, sitting up in bed.
“Morning,” he said, smiling.
“Morning,” she repeated, still thrilled over that fact that he got to be the first and last person she saw each day. No matter what happened in-between, she always had something to look forward to.
She leaned over the bed to kiss him, and he surprised her by grabbing her waist and pulling her down onto the bed with him.
“Leonard!” she laughed, only half-heartedly struggling to get away. “I need to get dressed!”
“I can help you with that,” he said, kissing her neck and sliding his hand underneath her shirt, resting it along her side.
Penny groaned.
“If I don’t get out of this bed now, I don’t know if I ever will.” Leonard continued to kiss her, reaching the one spot that made her shudder. “Then again, I’m sure there’ll be other auditions…” Penny started, but Leonard promptly cut her off.
“Don’t you dare, missy,” he said. “You’re going to that audition. You’ve finally made it this far, you’re not going to skip it, that’s no way to start a career.”
She knew that he knew she hadn’t been serious about skipping the audition, but she appreciated his support just the same. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips before sneaking out of his grasp.
“Thank you. And now I really do need to get ready, so no more distractions, please!”
Leonard got out of bed and headed to the kitchen, and by the time Penny was dressed he’d already toasted a bagel and spread cream cheese on it for her.
“Breakfast to go,” he said, handing it to her along with a travel mug of coffee.
Penny took it gratefully.
“I really do wish I didn’t have to work today,” she said.
“I know. Me too. But go break a leg out there!”
She smiled, and leaned over the counter for one more quick kiss before she left.
“Love you,” he said, the words still filling her stomach with butterflies, no matter how many times he told her.
“Love you too,” she said on her way out, loving how his smile somehow managed to grow even brighter every time she said those words. She had no idea why she had been so scared of this, this was the best feeling in the world.
*****
Penny’s day went as well as could be expected. Her meeting with her agent in the morning was to discuss the finer details of her contract with the TV show. Many of the technicalities went right over Penny’s head, and she was grateful to have found such a patient agent who was willing to explain things and guide her through the ins and outs of Hollywood.
She had barely enough time after the meeting to grab a quick bite for lunch before she was off to the studio for rehearsals. Her part was still rather minor, so there was a lot of sitting around and waiting, but Penny was thrilled just the same to finally be a part of something. Instead of retreating to her dressing room, she hung around on set, watching the others work, and exchanged friendly chit-chats with the cast and crew between takes. She was going to make the most of this experience while she could.
Her scenes were done with by 4:00, giving her two hours to kill before her audition at 6:00. She considered going over her lines again, but decided against it. Leonard had helped her go through them countless times already, and she felt comfortable with the script. No need to stress out even more right before the audition, no, she just needed to relax.
She was just about to pull away in her car when her cell phone rang. Putting the car back into park, she was confused when she saw it was her agent - she rarely called if they’d already spoken to each other earlier in the day.
“Hello?” Penny answered.
“Penny, an earlier spot’s just opened up for the audition, and they want to know if you can make it by 4:30.”
Penny double checked the time on her car’s dashboard. The location for the audition was just a few blocks away, but with LA traffic it was impossible to tell how long it could take.
“Um, I’m still at the studio, just got out of rehearsal,” Penny said.
“So is that a yes or a no? Let me tell you, I think they’d really appreciate it if you could make this earlier slot.”
“It’s a yes,” Penny said, pulling out of park. She dropped her phone to her lap and hit the speaker button. “I’m on my way.”
“Great, I’ll let them know,” her agent said, then promptly hung up the phone.
Penny slipped into the evening traffic, hoping she might get to spend some time with Leonard today after all.
*****
The audition went well, and the casting directors promised they’d be in touch. Penny couldn’t help but smile to herself; what had started out as an unwanted day was turning into a great one, with everything falling into place.
On the way home she stopped to buy a bottle of wine to celebrate, and a video store on the other side of the parking lot caught her eyes. On impulse she drove over, intending to have a quick look around for the movie from her dream, which she still hadn’t tracked down. Unfortunately, the store had closed early.
Penny was momentarily disappointed, but cheered herself up from the fact that she’d still get to spend the evening with Leonard. Really, that was all that mattered.
She almost called him to let him know she was on her way, but on second thought put the phone back down, deciding to surprise him.
*****
Leonard sat on his couch, mindlessly flipping through channels on the TV with the remote in his right hand, his left hand turning a small, black, velvet box over and over.
He hadn’t had the ring for long yet, barely a week. Bernadette had helped him pick it out, after he’d sworn her to secrecy. She wasn’t to breath a word of it to anyone, especially Howard, who she was once again dating. Thankfully, Bernadette apparently understood how horrible Howard was at keeping a secret, because none of the guys had said anything to Leonard implying that they knew what he was planning.
To be honest, he still wasn’t entirely sure himself. He knew he wanted to propose, knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Penny, and he was pretty sure that she wanted the same. But they’d only been dating for about six months, still not as long as the first time. Was it too soon to take the next step?
Sure, their relationship had a more solid foundation than before, and had continued to strengthen with every day they faced together. It was really just a matter of finding the right moment, and Leonard had no idea when that would be.
A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts, and he hastily stuffed the ring box in his pockets. The door was unlocked, he knew, and he didn’t have time to risk trying to run and hide the ring back in his sock drawer.
“Come in!” he called, making sure his jacket fell just right to cover the bump the box made in his pants pocket. He heard the door open, and was shocked when he looked up to see his girlfriend. “Penny! Why are you - what about your audition!”
“I already finished my audition,” she said, sitting down on the arm of the couch next to him. “They bumped me up, so I finished early.”
Leonard felt as though the ring box was burning a hole in his pocket, and suddenly remembered how he’d had it with him in his vision as well. He’d wondered at the time if that meant he was planning on proposing that night, but now he realized he’d just been nearly caught with it, forced to hide it.
“Oh!” he said, jumping up and remembering something else. “Look what I found today.”
He went to the kitchen counter, and came back holding a plastic bag and handed it to Penny. She took it curiously, then gasped when she took the item out.
“It’s the movie!” she exclaimed, jumping up to give him a hug. “Where did you find it?”
“It was in one of those bargain bins at the grocery store, in the middle of the aisle,” Leonard said. “I wasn’t even going to look, but my cart wheel knocked against the bin as I passed it, and this one was loose on top and fell down.” He shrugged. “I knew we couldn’t watch it tonight, but I thought it’d still be fun for another night.”
“Well now we can watch it tonight!” Penny said, taking a hold of Leonard’s arm and dragging him towards the door. “I’ve even got the wine!”
Leonard smiled at her eagerness. Considering how much she’d originally fought against the future in the first few weeks after the Flashforward, he never would have guessed how much she’d be embracing this moment now, wanting to make sure everything was exactly right.
It wasn’t long before they were curled up together on Penny’s couch, the lights dimmed, movie playing on her television.
“Do you even have any idea what the movie’s about?” Leonard asked as the opening credits began to play.
“No idea,” Penny said, taking a sip of her wine.
It turned out to be a pretty poorly made movie. It was meant to be a drama, but Penny found herself laughing instead.
“Why in the world did I want to watch this movie?” she asked, horrified by the acting.
“Because we were watching it in the vision?”
“But why did I want to watch it then, in the first place?!”
Leonard frowned.
“Well, I could give you a partial answer that would reference time travel theories, and alternate dimensions, and other mind boggling stuff…”
“Never mind,” Penny said. “I think I’ve had enough of future discussion to last a lifetime.”
She thought back to when she’d first had the vision, how confused she’d been. She wondered if they still would have been sitting here without that glimpse of the future, or if it was seeing the future that helped push them in the right direction.
These were the moments she loved most with Leonard. Just the two of them enjoying each other’s company. She wondered how she’d managed to go so long without this, and how she could have let it go after having it.
“I love you,” she said suddenly, turning around to look at him. She wasn’t thinking about the vision anymore, just how much she cared about the man behind her, and how she never wanted to go another day without him in her life.
Leonard smiled, and then his next words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Marry me.”
It was a toss up between who was more surprised, Leonard or Penny.
“Leonard -”
Gone were his plans of waiting for the perfect moment, it suddenly occurred to him that this was the perfect moment. He dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out the small black box.
“I should probably do this properly,” he muttered, sliding off the couch onto the floor, where he balanced on one knee. Penny had gone silent upon seeing the box, and now had a hand covering her mouth in shock.
“I love you,” Leonard said, cracking open the box and carefully removing the ring. “I’ve never really known love until I met you. I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you. Penny, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Penny squealed. “Yes, of course, I will marry you!”
She jumped off the couch, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.
When the kiss broke, Leonard gently took her left hand, and slid the ring onto her finger.
“It’s beautiful!” Penny said, admiring the diamonds. “Did you know?” she asked suddenly, looking back up at Leonard.
He shook his head, knowing what she was referring to.
“I’d felt the box in my pocket, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was.”
“Funny how we could both see the future, and still be surprised.”
“I never needed a vision to know you were in my future.”
Penny smiled and kissed him again, overwhelmed with joy.
She didn’t know what the next day would bring, or the day after that. But the one thing she was certain of was that whatever the future brought, she’d be facing it with Leonard, and that was all that mattered.