[fic] & light is only now just breaking, bbtfic, s/p, part iii
Title: & light is only now just breaking -- part iii
Author: allthingsholy
Artist: juniperlane
Pairing(s): Penny, Sheldon/Penny
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst. The misuse of farm terminology. Bad familial relationships and lots of run-on sentences.
Word Count: 22000
For: bigbangbigbang
Summary: Penny moves back home to take care of her mother. Sheldon, for reasons of his own, follows her.
Notes: Giant huge thanks to several people for helping me get through this thing: lulabo, who has been the biggest advocate of this fic since day 1; juniperlane, who has been the best person to bounce ideas off of and deal with my general crazy, and who made a rocking awesome fanmix; and ishie, who is one helluva cheerleader.
|| Fanmix found here||
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The boys come out for Sarah’s funeral. Penny and Sheldon drive to the airport to pick them up, and when she sees them all at the arrivals curb, she nearly runs to greet them. She wraps her arm around all of them; she imagines she can still smell California on their clothes and in their hair, but it’s probably just her imagination. When she hugs Raj, he leans over and whispers, “I’m so sorry” into her ear.
Her throat is rough when she asks, “Raj, you can talk to girls now? And I missed it?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” Howard answers. “He was drinking on the plane.”
The boys serve as a welcome distraction in the days before the funeral. They’re staying at a small motel in town, but they come to house for most of the day. The house is full of people, their neighbors and friends and family. Sally has been a fairly constant presence at Penny’s side, and between her and Sheldon, Penny hasn’t had many quiet moments.
All the kids were there in the end, Beth and Anne and Tommy and Penny. Penny had been the one to bring back their brother. She’d gotten the address from Sarah and driven downtown one Saturday, and sat on his stoop until he’d come home. It took more than a little convincing to get him to be in the same room with their father, but in the end, Penny had won out. There are only so many times a son can say no to his mother, and Penny had worked that for all it was worth.
When the time came, it was so much quieter than Penny was expecting. She sat at the foot of the bed with Beth and Anne. Tommy and Bob stood next to the head board. They didn’t talk to each other much, but when Tommy started to cry in earnest, Bob put a hand on the back of his son’s neck and whispered something in his ear. One minute her mom was there and the next, she was gone. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no swelling music or hysterical sobs. There was a shaky breath and then stillness, and then lots of tears and hugs.
The morning of the funeral, everyone packs into the house before they head to the church, and the kitchen is full of casseroles and cookies that their friends and neighbors have been dropping off for days. Beth and Anne and their families are in the living room and the house is suddenly so much louder than Penny is used to.
Tommy comes in with Sam right behind him. Things are still tense whenever he’s around, but Penny’s glad to have him back. She gives him a tight hug and sits beside him on the couch, Tommy on one side and Sheldon on the other. She listens with half an ear to their small talk-which mostly consists of Tommy making confused faces and Sheldon trying not to get frustrated-until it’s time to go.
Sheldon drives and doesn't complain, and Penny wishes she could find it amusing how comfortable he's gotten breaking the law. She keeps her hands folded in her lap and watches the town pass by, and she's fine, she really is, she's not crying much at all until they pass the fountain, the one where she threw all those wishes away. She makes this sound in the back of her throat, this terrible, raw sound, and Sheldon looks away from the road long enough to see the tears start to track down her face in earnest. He doesn't do much-there’s not much to be done-just covers her hands with one of his, and holds onto her all the way to the church.
The ceremony is as hard as Penny was expecting, and it seems like half the town is there. There are former students and fellow teachers, and people from high school Penny didn’t think she remembered. She tries to remember their names instead of listening to the preacher, because if she listens she’ll cry and it feels like she’s done enough of that for a lifetime. Sheldon keeps an arm along the pew at Penny’s back, and tangles a hand in her hair when she folds into him and really loses it, when she hears Tommy start to cry and sees him and Anne embracing. It’s all she can do to turn her head and bury her face against Sheldon’s neck.
Afterward they head back to the house, Penny and Sheldon in front, and Raj and Howard and Leonard smooshed into the back. No one makes a comment about Sheldon driving. He takes a detour back to the house so as not to drive past the courthouse, and Penny squeezes his hand in thanks, but doesn’t say a word.
They spend the rest of the afternoon at the house. People bring over more dishes, more platters and pies and casseroles. Beth and the kids take up their own corner in the living room, and Anne tucks herself quietly into the couch. Matt keeps a comforting arm around her, and it's the first time Penny's ever liked him, the way he rubs quiet circles onto her back and keeps leaning down to whisper in her ear. Tommy keeps pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, and Sam just sits in the chair sullenly and watches him, her eyes worried and withdrawn. Penny hasn't talked to her much, hasn't really even met her yet, besides at the funeral home this morning, but she seems okay.
Dad is a ghost. He keeps disappearing up the stairs and coming back down with redder and redder eyes. Aunt Marge keeps trying to feed him, and Uncle Stan keeps trying to get him drunk, but he just gets more and more sullen. She sees him slip out eventually, just open the back door and walk outside, and for a second she thinks about following him, but then she goes over to sit by Beth instead. The house is louder than it's been in months, even with everyone trying to speak in hushed voices, and Penny's glad for the distractions. She watches cousin Barbara try to keep a hold of her two-year-old son, who constantly proves himself to be a terror, and she watches the Johnsons from down the road try and strike up a conversation with her great aunt Sylvia, who's deaf in one ear and senile in the other.
Eventually, she steps out to the back porch, a plate of food in one hand that she's been holding for the better part of twenty minutes and hasn't touched yet. The guys are already outside, sitting on the back steps or leaning against the rail. They stop talking when she comes out, but she can still hear Leonard's laughter ringing through the air and it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
"Don't stop talking," she says, walking past them to sit on the porch swing. "Just. Don't stop talking." Sheldon comes over from the steps to sit down next to her, and she sets her plate on her lap and lets him rock them and just listens.
They all glance at her, and start out a little awkwardly, but eventually they settle into an easy rhythm. Leonard tells her and Sheldon about the couple that moved in across the hall, into her old apartment; they're older, in their 50s, and pretty cool, he says. The man's a psychiatrist and the woman's an artist, and she brings him food sometimes, vegan lasagnas and cookies and loaves of fresh bread. She asks him over to look at her sculptures or her landscapes. Her name's Antonia.
"She's just trying to get in your pants," Howard says, winking slyly at Leonard. "I know how you've been having a dry spell lately. It's sad when Sheldon's getting more than you are, friend."
There's another awkward pause, and Penny shifts against Sheldon a little uncomfortably. They guys haven't asked about what's going on between Sheldon and Penny yet. She knows they want to, but she's not even sure she'd know what to say. They haven't really talked about what they're doing, or where it's going, and it's by no means the most straightforward relationship Penny's ever been in. If it's a relationship at all, which she's not sure it is.
Here's how things have usually gone since that night at the piano: Mom had a bad night, and Penny took to the porch swing, or the barn, or the bed of the truck. She'd be frustrated, or upset, or sullen, and he would come to her, every time. It didn't always lead to anything. More often than not, they would just sit and talk, or stare out over the fields or up at the sky. He would still point out the constellations, the different patterns in the darkness. The nights that started like that, with the wide reach of his arm above her and the gentle, sure sound of his voice in her ears, are usually the ones that ended up with Penny's hand up under Sheldon's shirt, and his fingers tangling into her hair.
He's not the most romantic of partners, and he's awkward sometimes with his hands on her body, but she likes it. There's comfort in the feel of his chest against hers, and his lips at her throat, or her shoulder. He's still headstrong, but if there's one thing that's changed about Sheldon since he's been here, it's his growing capacity for patience, and his improved self-control for the flaws and faults of others. She's gentle when she guides his hands, and forgiving when he missteps, and more often than not he surprises her with his sheer determination. He leans them back against the truck bed and settles a hand on her stomach, and then dips down, further, and she buries her face in his neck and forgets about the world for awhile. And afterward, they still sit and talk and linger. More than anything else it's comforting, for both of them, which is really what Penny needs.
She wouldn't have the worlds to describe that though, if any of the guys asked her to. She doesn't think Sheldon would know what to say either, and when she looks over at him, he's as caught by Howard's remark as she is, and as determined to just move past it.
"Penny, I was talking to your brother earlier," Leonard says, and the moment goes by without any explanations given. "That's exciting news about his girlfriend."
Penny squints her eyes at him and shakes her head a little. "What news?"
Leonard opens and closes his mouth, and looks stricken for a second, eyes jumping from her to Sheldon to the guys and back. "Oh. I don't." He stops and scratches at the back of his neck. "What?"
"What news?" she repeats.
She sees Raj grimace and look away, and she's got her eyes on his face when Leonard says, "That his girlfriend's pregnant."
Penny sucks in a breath and feels Sheldon immediately draw his arm closer around her. Her jaw tightens and her hands ball into fists. She's not angry or mad or really all that surprised, but there's this hard knot behind her ribcage, and suddenly her eyes are filling with tears. She wonders if her mom knew.
Leonard takes a step toward her, hands raised apologetically in front of him. "I'm so sorry, Penny, I thought you knew. I thought it was good news. Is it not? Good news?" He looks helplessly at Sheldon, who just cuts him off with a hard glance.
Penny tries to order her thoughts, but all she gets is more flustered. "It's fine, Leonard. It's-" She swallows hard, looking out past the barn and over the field. "It's good news.”
Just past the barn she can see a lone figure standing next in the field, beans up to his shins. She pushes herself off the swing with no explanation to the boys, and she’s halfway across the yard before she turns back to see them all looking at her in confusion.
When she gets closer to the field, she realizes it’s Tommy standing in a wide field of soy. She doesn’t say anything when she comes up behind him. There are tall clouds on the horizon and the ground is hard beneath Penny’s feet. She walks until she’s shoulder to shoulder with her brother, and he looks down at her and then back to the sky.
“Storm’s coming in.” He’s got a bean pod in his hand, and he picks at it lazily.
Penny tucks her hair behind her ear. “Good, we could use it.” She turns to look at him, at his rumpled collar and disheveled hair, and says, “You look like shit.”
Tommy breathes out a laugh and gives her a sharp look. “Thanks, Pen. I’m not sure if you heard, but my mom just died.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it.” She knows he’d look like this even if things were going good. He’s always had a lean and hungry look to him, his cheeks hollow and his eyes dark and hooded. It’s not that he looks sick or weak-she’s seen him rough up guys twice his size-he just looks tired. Bone weary and exhausted. As much as he needs it, he’s never been one to ask for help, and she knows there’s little usefulness in pushing the subject, so she looks away and says, “Sam seems nice.”
Tommy flings the bean pod into the field and leans down to pick a new one. “Sam is nice.” He gives her a look, an older brother look she’s always resented and says, “You and that tall guy seem pretty close. Is he nice?”
“Not always.”
“Is he mean?”
Penny shakes her head. “No, he’s not mean.”
Tommy breathes in deep and exhales hard, like he’s satisfied for now. “Good. That’s good.”
They stand for awhile and watch the clouds creep in. The air cools down rapidly and Penny hugs her arms around herself and runs her hands over her shoulders. When Tommy notices, he turns back toward the house and motions for her to follow, but he only gets a few steps away when Penny asks, “Did Mom know Sam’s pregnant?”
A big gust of wind that wraps Tommy’s tie around his neck, and he pauses for awhile before he answers. “No,” he says, and his voice is throaty and soft. “I didn’t get a chance to tell her.”
Penny nods her head and looks past him toward the house. She can see the guys still on the porch and a few of their cousins in the drive. “Does Dad know?”
Tommy clears his throat and says, “Yeah, he knows.”
Penny clenches her jaw. The rain will be in before sunset, and already the wind has a bite to it. She hasn’t missed the unusual closeness between Tommy and their father the past few days, and if she weren’t so glad to see them at peace, she’d resent it. She tries to keep the edge out of her voice when she says, “You and Dad seem to be getting along.”
“Penny, don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
Tommy shakes his head. “Don’t tell me that. I know you two are fighting.”
Penny raises her eyebrows, indignant. “We’re not fighting.”
“Yeah,” Tommy answers, “you two have been fighting for over a decade.” He takes a few steps toward her and she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes. “You know I’m the last person who will jump to that man’s defense, but come on, Pen. Cut him some slack.”
There are years of unresolved tension in her voice when she lifts her chin defiantly and asks, “Why?”
“He lost Mom too, you know.” It might be a trick of the lighting or the fresh air that’s done him some good, but Tommy suddenly looks younger than he has in a long, long time. He doesn’t wait for an answer before turning and walking back to the house. Penny stands in the field for a few minutes trying to sort her thoughts before she follows him, and when she walks into the living room, a bean pod in her hand, he gives her a look with no give at all.
It takes a long time for the house to empty out. Beth and Anne stay to help clean up, and Tommy and Sam sit out on the porch with her dad for a long time after everyone else goes. By the time she changes and washes her face, she’s not tired enough to sleep. She sits in the living room awhile but it’s too full of memories. The chair where her mother always sat. The book they were reading on the mantle. Sarah’s last knitting project sticking out from underneath the coffee table. It’s a weight on Penny’s chest and behind her eyes, and she pushes off the couch and creeps quietly upstairs. She steps over the stair that always squeaks and keeps her feet light as she walks down the hallway.
When she gets to Beth’s room, she pushes the door open quietly and makes her way over to the bed. She knows the hazards of waking Sheldon and she’s prepared for the worst, but when she leans down and lays a hand on his shoulder, he jerks awake silently and looks at her with wide, frightened eyes. He doesn’t say anything when she sits on the edge of the bed, just pulls the covers back and lets her in. He makes room for the both of them. He doesn’t open his arms and pull her to his chest, and he doesn’t slide his hand suggestively over her hip.
Sheldon sleeps on his back, with Penny beside him on her side, curled up with her head against his shoulder. She sleeps soundly for the first time in weeks.
The boys stay out for a few days, but then it’s time for them to head back to Pasadena. Sheldon and Penny drive them to the airport, and on the way home, all Penny does is wonder when Sheldon will be leaving. Why he’s stayed so long. He still disappears into the fields sometimes, still comes back with his notebook gripped tightly in his hands, and she’s sure it’s just a matter of time before he decides to go back to California.
Tommy starts coming around more. Come September he helps with the harvest and Penny can’t help but be amazed by the change in him. He looks study for the first time in years, like it would take more than a swift wind to knock him off his feet. And he and Dad aren’t fighting for once, which Penny finds truly amazing.
Sam comes around sometimes, her belly growing with every visit. She’s a teacher, Penny discovers, and a part-time waitress to help cover the bills. She keeps Penny company usually, when the boys and Dad are in the field. It keeps Penny’s mind off things for the most part, but she still finds herself with a quiet moment alone in the living room, reminders of her mother everywhere. She hurts for awhile, a steady kind of grief that stings her eyes and tightens her jaw, but eventually it starts to even out. Not disappear, but ease. She sits in her mother’s place on the couch and recollects and when her eyes fill with tears, they’re not tears of grief.
She starts to notice a change in Sheldon, a restless energy about him. He’s still softer in the places she’s come to know him best, but there’s a sense that things are changing and even if she wanted, Penny couldn’t stop them. She knows it’s only a matter of time before he decides to leave, and despite herself, she knows how sad she’ll be to see him go.
The harvest is finished and winter planting not yet begun when Penny knows it’s time. Sheldon comes out of the field, and Penny can see the hayseed clinging to the leg of his pants. Behind him, the sun is setting above the trees, streaks of orange and pink along the sky. The days are starting to get shorter; it's only 7:00, and already the sun is almost down.
She leans back against the barn door and watches Sheldon approach. There's a difference in his gait, an easier, loping movement of his legs as he walks. He's still tight and controlled for the most part, but something's given way and relaxed, and she keeps her eyes on the swing of his shoulders as he walks.
He stops just in front of her, his notebook held tight in his hands. He clears his throat to speak and then pauses, looks her over, and crinkles his eyes and says, "Penny, it's time to go home."
It's what she's been waiting for him to say for the past month, ever since Mom died and the boys went back to California. It's what she's been waiting to hear every night when she curls against him in Beth’s bed, with her leg slung over his hips and his fingers wrapping softly around her knee. She clears her throat and looks past him, out over the field and into the sunset. She bites her lip and smiles at him, slow and a little bit sad.
When she pushes herself off the door, she heads past him toward the driveway, fishing the truck keys from her pocket as she walks. "Come on," she says over her shoulder, and she hears the crunch of gravel behind her as Sheldon starts to follow. She clambers into the cab of the truck, and when Sheldon slides in beside her, she starts the engine and pulls out of the driveway. She rolls the window down and drives, and Sheldon knows better than to ask where she’s taking him. There have been too many mystery trips around town for this to be anything out of the ordinary at this point, and she glances over now and again to see him looking out over the fields that pass alongside them, cornstalks clipped and cut close to the ground.
They drive for only a few minutes before Penny steers the truck down a narrow lane, tree branches scraping the sides of the cab as they pass. The way is overgrown, but Penny remembers it well enough, and then the lane opens up into a clearing, a barely discernible hill amidst all that flat prairie land. She parks the truck under a big tree, and shuts off the engine and sits. She turns to look at him after a few minutes of silence, and says, "You're going home." It's not a question, or an accusation, just a flat statement of fact. She sounds resigned. She is resigned.
He fidgets a little awkwardly beside her and says, "It's time to go back to California. I've worked out several of the kinks in my research, and I believe the new hypotheses I've devised during my time here will be of interest to many of my peers." There's a coyote howling somewhere past the clearing, and his cry is a sharp sound against the quiet. "I need to go back."
Penny lowers her head, and her hair is a curtain around her face. "Okay."
"Penny, I-" For the first time, Sheldon falters, and his voice is more uncertain when he speaks. "I want you to come back too."
It's not something Penny let herself prepare for, that Sheldon would want her to come with him. She looks up and meets his eyes, and they're wide and warm and cautious. She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off. "Penny, we need to go home."
She looks at him then, the curl of his hair against his temples and the faint lines around his eyes. She slides over toward him, and hitches a leg over his lap. His hands come up to rest against her hips, and she leans her forehead to his and says softly, "I can't."
She feels him swallow, the flutter of his muscle underneath her hand as she runs her palm up his chest and along his throat. Her fingertips skim his jaw and his Adam's apple bobs against her thumb. His breath is hot against her cheek and his voice is just a whisper when he says, “Penny, it’s time to go home.”
Penny closes her eyes and smiles into his jaw, then presses her lips to the hollow of his cheek. She pulls back and covers the spot with her palm, and when Sheldon leans into her hand just slightly, it’s all she can do not to bury her face against his neck and weep. Instead, she traces the line of his jaw with her fingertips, and uses the other hand to hold herself steady against the solidness of his chest. The sound of insects sneaks into the cab, a heavy rhythm that presses through the windows and against her ears. Maybe this is home, Penny thinks. Maybe California is just a dream, or a lie, or a fantasy.
Sheldon digs his fingers a little more soundly into her hips, and he pulls her toward him, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Penny,” he says, voice a little strangled, “it’s time to go home.”
Penny doesn’t answer, just slides her hands up to cup his face and leans down to press her mouth to his. His lips are warm beneath her own, and he slides his hands around her waist and up, flat against her back and pushing at the ends of her hair. They stay and watch the fireflies dancing in the field, and before the end of the week, Sheldon is gone.
--
With just Penny and her father left, the house is too quiet. They still spend their days on chores and farm work, but Penny visits town more, going into the city to see Tommy and Sam or hanging out with Sally. She likes to think she’s not avoiding her father but if the last few months have taught her anything, it’s the futility of trying to buy more time.
She comes home from a shift at the bar one night and from the driveway she sees a light through the window. There’s still a lamp on in the living room and when she walks in the door, she’s surprised to see her father still up, sitting quietly in her mother’s chair.
“I thought you’d be asleep.” She’s got her shoes in her hand and her purse over her shoulder, and she looks questioningly at her father when she realizes he’s reading. Not the newspaper or the mystery novels he seems to favor, but the autobiography Penny and her mother never finished. Penny had read it all after Sheldon left, but hadn’t had the heart to return it to the library.
“Alice Paul was a Quaker,” Penny says, moving to sit in the chair across from her father.
He lays the book in his lap and leans back in his chair. “I read that,” he says, and then the room is quiet again. It feels like the start of every bad conversation Penny had in high school, that usually ended in Penny’s week-long grounding. She digs her toes into the carpet and looks at the figurines on the mantle when her father asks, “When are you heading back to California?”
Penny draws herself upright and narrows her eyes. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d stick around awhile, help you get settled.” She pushes herself up roughly from her chair and makes for the stairs, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
“Penelope, get back here.” It’s a phrase Penny’s heard a thousand times, and it’s still got the power to stop her in her tracks. She walks slowly back into the living room and levels her father with a fierce glare. “You know that’s not what I meant-” he starts, but Penny interrupts.
“That’s always what you mean.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.” Her hand grips the back of the chair so hard her knuckles are white. “You didn’t want me to go to California in the first place, why do you want me to go back now?”
“No, I didn’t want you to go to California,” he says. He leans forward in his chair, voice getting louder and louder. “I didn’t want you following that boy a thousand miles away with no plan. You were always one step behind trouble, your whole life.”
“I thought that was Tommy,” Penny bites back, “and you seem to have patched things up with him.”
Her father runs his hand over his face, the wrinkled and weathered brow. His voice is quieter when he says, “You never made it easy.”
Penny shifts from foot to foot. “Well, I’m sorry for that, then.”
“If you want you to go to California, go to California,” he says, standing up from his chair. “But I want you to go because you want to go. I don’t want you to run away to Sheldon like you ran off with Todd, and I don’t want you to go because you think you’re not welcome here.” He walks until he’s standing just next to her, and Penny works to meet his eyes. “Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want you to go to California because I wanted you here?” She holds his eyes as long as she can, and when she looks down at her hands he walks past her, up the stairs and to his room.
There’s a large part of Penny that knows her father’s not wrong. She’s self-aware enough to recognize her limits and her weaknesses when she’s forced to take a hard look at herself, and for the first time, she tries to imagine what her father’s seen over the past few years. It’s a thought that keeps her up well into the night.
--
She spends the next week trying to decide what to do. She goes back and forth in her mind and tries to suss out her true motivations, to figure out what it is she really wants. She tries to imagine what her mother would say if she were here.
“I’d go to California and lay on the beach and never leave,” Sally says.
“I’d find a hundred new ways to get in trouble,” Tommy answers.
They’re sitting on the back porch passing a bottle of cheap wine between them. Penny’s shift at the bar had ended early and Tommy had still been at the house when she and Sally got back. One thing had lead to another, stories of high school and hometown legends keeping them occupied for hours, and now they’re dissecting the details of Penny’s future.
“Here’s what it comes down to, kid,” Tommy says, leaning over and getting in her face, just like he always used to when they were young. “What do you want to do?”
An owl hoots from somewhere past the barn. There are 400 acres of her family’s land around her, and she smiles to herself and then pushes off the swing. She darts inside and grabs the truck keys off the kitchen counter and then heads back to the porch. “You two. Come on.” She walks out to the drive and hears them following behind.
She tried to get Sheldon to do this thing with her, this thing Tommy used to do with her and her friends, this stupid, dangerous thing. He’d said no, of course, but when she looks at Tommy and Sally from the cab of the truck, they give her the wicked grins she loves best and climb in beside her without a word.
They drive the truck out past the west-most field, to the flattest, straightest stretch of dirt road on the property, and Penny gets out and climbs over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. The night is dark and cool, summer fading out into the chill of fall, but the sky is clear. She can see all the stars Sheldon taught her, Orion, Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, seven sisters in the sky. She leans her head back and takes in all of it, the wide stretch of a Nebraska night sky pulling out in every direction.
“You ready?” Sally yells out from the cab. Penny grabs onto of the edge of the rear window and holds on tight. She braces her feet and sets her jaw, and the night is clear and bright and she’s alive and she could be happy.
“Go!” Penny yells, and the truck leaps forward and she tightens up instinctively, memories flooding through her and the wind cutting into her clothes. She’s hip-level with the top of the cab and Tommy’s flying down the lane and Sally’s cranking something that thuds in Penny’s already beating chest. Penny spreads her free arm out, like she’s flying, and the wind slides through her fingers, peeling her hair away from her neck.
She’s blissful. She’s ecstatic. There are tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and the wind pushes them off her face, and the night is bright and clear and when the truck finally stops, she’s still laughing.
--
The drive from Omaha to Pasadena isn’t half as long as she remembers, and she makes it all the way without breaking down once. Before she knows it she’s pulling onto the 210 and seeing street signs with names she recognizes. There’s a suitcase in the trunk and a cardboard box in the backseat filled with only the things she knew she couldn’t do without: pictures of her family, and a quilt her mother knit, and a book with an old photo to mark the page. She drives into town on a Tuesday afternoon and the first place she heads isn’t the apartment complex, it’s the University. She parks her car at a meter a block away from the guys’ building and takes off. There are students everywhere, and the air smells like green grass and blooming trees, and sand and sky and water. Penny can feel the sun on her face, and she turns her face up without even thinking.
She’s across the street from the Physics building when she sees them, Sheldon and Leonard and Raj and Howard. Sheldon’s leading the way, talking with his hands while the guys make facing behind him, and it’s so devastatingly normal and perfect that Penny freezes in her tracks. She watches them as they cross the street toward her, and her heart starts to pound. It’s like the wind in her hair in the back of the truck, only the ground beneath her feet isn’t moving. There’s a tree above her head that’s filled with white flowers, and the sky is a perfect, California shade of blue.
Sheldon suddenly looks right at her and every movement in his body stops. She sees the guys look at him in confusion, and then follow his eyes to her, and then she doesn’t see anything at all but the look on Sheldon’s face as he steps toward her.
Penny’s done waiting. She’s done wandering. She’s ready to plow forward full tilt, and with her whole life in front of her, she smiles. She runs.
-----
Author: allthingsholy
Artist: juniperlane
Pairing(s): Penny, Sheldon/Penny
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst. The misuse of farm terminology. Bad familial relationships and lots of run-on sentences.
Word Count: 22000
For: bigbangbigbang
Summary: Penny moves back home to take care of her mother. Sheldon, for reasons of his own, follows her.
Notes: Giant huge thanks to several people for helping me get through this thing: lulabo, who has been the biggest advocate of this fic since day 1; juniperlane, who has been the best person to bounce ideas off of and deal with my general crazy, and who made a rocking awesome fanmix; and ishie, who is one helluva cheerleader.
|| Fanmix found here||
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The boys come out for Sarah’s funeral. Penny and Sheldon drive to the airport to pick them up, and when she sees them all at the arrivals curb, she nearly runs to greet them. She wraps her arm around all of them; she imagines she can still smell California on their clothes and in their hair, but it’s probably just her imagination. When she hugs Raj, he leans over and whispers, “I’m so sorry” into her ear.
Her throat is rough when she asks, “Raj, you can talk to girls now? And I missed it?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” Howard answers. “He was drinking on the plane.”
The boys serve as a welcome distraction in the days before the funeral. They’re staying at a small motel in town, but they come to house for most of the day. The house is full of people, their neighbors and friends and family. Sally has been a fairly constant presence at Penny’s side, and between her and Sheldon, Penny hasn’t had many quiet moments.
All the kids were there in the end, Beth and Anne and Tommy and Penny. Penny had been the one to bring back their brother. She’d gotten the address from Sarah and driven downtown one Saturday, and sat on his stoop until he’d come home. It took more than a little convincing to get him to be in the same room with their father, but in the end, Penny had won out. There are only so many times a son can say no to his mother, and Penny had worked that for all it was worth.
When the time came, it was so much quieter than Penny was expecting. She sat at the foot of the bed with Beth and Anne. Tommy and Bob stood next to the head board. They didn’t talk to each other much, but when Tommy started to cry in earnest, Bob put a hand on the back of his son’s neck and whispered something in his ear. One minute her mom was there and the next, she was gone. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no swelling music or hysterical sobs. There was a shaky breath and then stillness, and then lots of tears and hugs.
The morning of the funeral, everyone packs into the house before they head to the church, and the kitchen is full of casseroles and cookies that their friends and neighbors have been dropping off for days. Beth and Anne and their families are in the living room and the house is suddenly so much louder than Penny is used to.
Tommy comes in with Sam right behind him. Things are still tense whenever he’s around, but Penny’s glad to have him back. She gives him a tight hug and sits beside him on the couch, Tommy on one side and Sheldon on the other. She listens with half an ear to their small talk-which mostly consists of Tommy making confused faces and Sheldon trying not to get frustrated-until it’s time to go.
Sheldon drives and doesn't complain, and Penny wishes she could find it amusing how comfortable he's gotten breaking the law. She keeps her hands folded in her lap and watches the town pass by, and she's fine, she really is, she's not crying much at all until they pass the fountain, the one where she threw all those wishes away. She makes this sound in the back of her throat, this terrible, raw sound, and Sheldon looks away from the road long enough to see the tears start to track down her face in earnest. He doesn't do much-there’s not much to be done-just covers her hands with one of his, and holds onto her all the way to the church.
The ceremony is as hard as Penny was expecting, and it seems like half the town is there. There are former students and fellow teachers, and people from high school Penny didn’t think she remembered. She tries to remember their names instead of listening to the preacher, because if she listens she’ll cry and it feels like she’s done enough of that for a lifetime. Sheldon keeps an arm along the pew at Penny’s back, and tangles a hand in her hair when she folds into him and really loses it, when she hears Tommy start to cry and sees him and Anne embracing. It’s all she can do to turn her head and bury her face against Sheldon’s neck.
Afterward they head back to the house, Penny and Sheldon in front, and Raj and Howard and Leonard smooshed into the back. No one makes a comment about Sheldon driving. He takes a detour back to the house so as not to drive past the courthouse, and Penny squeezes his hand in thanks, but doesn’t say a word.
They spend the rest of the afternoon at the house. People bring over more dishes, more platters and pies and casseroles. Beth and the kids take up their own corner in the living room, and Anne tucks herself quietly into the couch. Matt keeps a comforting arm around her, and it's the first time Penny's ever liked him, the way he rubs quiet circles onto her back and keeps leaning down to whisper in her ear. Tommy keeps pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, and Sam just sits in the chair sullenly and watches him, her eyes worried and withdrawn. Penny hasn't talked to her much, hasn't really even met her yet, besides at the funeral home this morning, but she seems okay.
Dad is a ghost. He keeps disappearing up the stairs and coming back down with redder and redder eyes. Aunt Marge keeps trying to feed him, and Uncle Stan keeps trying to get him drunk, but he just gets more and more sullen. She sees him slip out eventually, just open the back door and walk outside, and for a second she thinks about following him, but then she goes over to sit by Beth instead. The house is louder than it's been in months, even with everyone trying to speak in hushed voices, and Penny's glad for the distractions. She watches cousin Barbara try to keep a hold of her two-year-old son, who constantly proves himself to be a terror, and she watches the Johnsons from down the road try and strike up a conversation with her great aunt Sylvia, who's deaf in one ear and senile in the other.
Eventually, she steps out to the back porch, a plate of food in one hand that she's been holding for the better part of twenty minutes and hasn't touched yet. The guys are already outside, sitting on the back steps or leaning against the rail. They stop talking when she comes out, but she can still hear Leonard's laughter ringing through the air and it makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
"Don't stop talking," she says, walking past them to sit on the porch swing. "Just. Don't stop talking." Sheldon comes over from the steps to sit down next to her, and she sets her plate on her lap and lets him rock them and just listens.
They all glance at her, and start out a little awkwardly, but eventually they settle into an easy rhythm. Leonard tells her and Sheldon about the couple that moved in across the hall, into her old apartment; they're older, in their 50s, and pretty cool, he says. The man's a psychiatrist and the woman's an artist, and she brings him food sometimes, vegan lasagnas and cookies and loaves of fresh bread. She asks him over to look at her sculptures or her landscapes. Her name's Antonia.
"She's just trying to get in your pants," Howard says, winking slyly at Leonard. "I know how you've been having a dry spell lately. It's sad when Sheldon's getting more than you are, friend."
There's another awkward pause, and Penny shifts against Sheldon a little uncomfortably. They guys haven't asked about what's going on between Sheldon and Penny yet. She knows they want to, but she's not even sure she'd know what to say. They haven't really talked about what they're doing, or where it's going, and it's by no means the most straightforward relationship Penny's ever been in. If it's a relationship at all, which she's not sure it is.
Here's how things have usually gone since that night at the piano: Mom had a bad night, and Penny took to the porch swing, or the barn, or the bed of the truck. She'd be frustrated, or upset, or sullen, and he would come to her, every time. It didn't always lead to anything. More often than not, they would just sit and talk, or stare out over the fields or up at the sky. He would still point out the constellations, the different patterns in the darkness. The nights that started like that, with the wide reach of his arm above her and the gentle, sure sound of his voice in her ears, are usually the ones that ended up with Penny's hand up under Sheldon's shirt, and his fingers tangling into her hair.
He's not the most romantic of partners, and he's awkward sometimes with his hands on her body, but she likes it. There's comfort in the feel of his chest against hers, and his lips at her throat, or her shoulder. He's still headstrong, but if there's one thing that's changed about Sheldon since he's been here, it's his growing capacity for patience, and his improved self-control for the flaws and faults of others. She's gentle when she guides his hands, and forgiving when he missteps, and more often than not he surprises her with his sheer determination. He leans them back against the truck bed and settles a hand on her stomach, and then dips down, further, and she buries her face in his neck and forgets about the world for awhile. And afterward, they still sit and talk and linger. More than anything else it's comforting, for both of them, which is really what Penny needs.
She wouldn't have the worlds to describe that though, if any of the guys asked her to. She doesn't think Sheldon would know what to say either, and when she looks over at him, he's as caught by Howard's remark as she is, and as determined to just move past it.
"Penny, I was talking to your brother earlier," Leonard says, and the moment goes by without any explanations given. "That's exciting news about his girlfriend."
Penny squints her eyes at him and shakes her head a little. "What news?"
Leonard opens and closes his mouth, and looks stricken for a second, eyes jumping from her to Sheldon to the guys and back. "Oh. I don't." He stops and scratches at the back of his neck. "What?"
"What news?" she repeats.
She sees Raj grimace and look away, and she's got her eyes on his face when Leonard says, "That his girlfriend's pregnant."
Penny sucks in a breath and feels Sheldon immediately draw his arm closer around her. Her jaw tightens and her hands ball into fists. She's not angry or mad or really all that surprised, but there's this hard knot behind her ribcage, and suddenly her eyes are filling with tears. She wonders if her mom knew.
Leonard takes a step toward her, hands raised apologetically in front of him. "I'm so sorry, Penny, I thought you knew. I thought it was good news. Is it not? Good news?" He looks helplessly at Sheldon, who just cuts him off with a hard glance.
Penny tries to order her thoughts, but all she gets is more flustered. "It's fine, Leonard. It's-" She swallows hard, looking out past the barn and over the field. "It's good news.”
Just past the barn she can see a lone figure standing next in the field, beans up to his shins. She pushes herself off the swing with no explanation to the boys, and she’s halfway across the yard before she turns back to see them all looking at her in confusion.
When she gets closer to the field, she realizes it’s Tommy standing in a wide field of soy. She doesn’t say anything when she comes up behind him. There are tall clouds on the horizon and the ground is hard beneath Penny’s feet. She walks until she’s shoulder to shoulder with her brother, and he looks down at her and then back to the sky.
“Storm’s coming in.” He’s got a bean pod in his hand, and he picks at it lazily.
Penny tucks her hair behind her ear. “Good, we could use it.” She turns to look at him, at his rumpled collar and disheveled hair, and says, “You look like shit.”
Tommy breathes out a laugh and gives her a sharp look. “Thanks, Pen. I’m not sure if you heard, but my mom just died.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it.” She knows he’d look like this even if things were going good. He’s always had a lean and hungry look to him, his cheeks hollow and his eyes dark and hooded. It’s not that he looks sick or weak-she’s seen him rough up guys twice his size-he just looks tired. Bone weary and exhausted. As much as he needs it, he’s never been one to ask for help, and she knows there’s little usefulness in pushing the subject, so she looks away and says, “Sam seems nice.”
Tommy flings the bean pod into the field and leans down to pick a new one. “Sam is nice.” He gives her a look, an older brother look she’s always resented and says, “You and that tall guy seem pretty close. Is he nice?”
“Not always.”
“Is he mean?”
Penny shakes her head. “No, he’s not mean.”
Tommy breathes in deep and exhales hard, like he’s satisfied for now. “Good. That’s good.”
They stand for awhile and watch the clouds creep in. The air cools down rapidly and Penny hugs her arms around herself and runs her hands over her shoulders. When Tommy notices, he turns back toward the house and motions for her to follow, but he only gets a few steps away when Penny asks, “Did Mom know Sam’s pregnant?”
A big gust of wind that wraps Tommy’s tie around his neck, and he pauses for awhile before he answers. “No,” he says, and his voice is throaty and soft. “I didn’t get a chance to tell her.”
Penny nods her head and looks past him toward the house. She can see the guys still on the porch and a few of their cousins in the drive. “Does Dad know?”
Tommy clears his throat and says, “Yeah, he knows.”
Penny clenches her jaw. The rain will be in before sunset, and already the wind has a bite to it. She hasn’t missed the unusual closeness between Tommy and their father the past few days, and if she weren’t so glad to see them at peace, she’d resent it. She tries to keep the edge out of her voice when she says, “You and Dad seem to be getting along.”
“Penny, don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
Tommy shakes his head. “Don’t tell me that. I know you two are fighting.”
Penny raises her eyebrows, indignant. “We’re not fighting.”
“Yeah,” Tommy answers, “you two have been fighting for over a decade.” He takes a few steps toward her and she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes. “You know I’m the last person who will jump to that man’s defense, but come on, Pen. Cut him some slack.”
There are years of unresolved tension in her voice when she lifts her chin defiantly and asks, “Why?”
“He lost Mom too, you know.” It might be a trick of the lighting or the fresh air that’s done him some good, but Tommy suddenly looks younger than he has in a long, long time. He doesn’t wait for an answer before turning and walking back to the house. Penny stands in the field for a few minutes trying to sort her thoughts before she follows him, and when she walks into the living room, a bean pod in her hand, he gives her a look with no give at all.
It takes a long time for the house to empty out. Beth and Anne stay to help clean up, and Tommy and Sam sit out on the porch with her dad for a long time after everyone else goes. By the time she changes and washes her face, she’s not tired enough to sleep. She sits in the living room awhile but it’s too full of memories. The chair where her mother always sat. The book they were reading on the mantle. Sarah’s last knitting project sticking out from underneath the coffee table. It’s a weight on Penny’s chest and behind her eyes, and she pushes off the couch and creeps quietly upstairs. She steps over the stair that always squeaks and keeps her feet light as she walks down the hallway.
When she gets to Beth’s room, she pushes the door open quietly and makes her way over to the bed. She knows the hazards of waking Sheldon and she’s prepared for the worst, but when she leans down and lays a hand on his shoulder, he jerks awake silently and looks at her with wide, frightened eyes. He doesn’t say anything when she sits on the edge of the bed, just pulls the covers back and lets her in. He makes room for the both of them. He doesn’t open his arms and pull her to his chest, and he doesn’t slide his hand suggestively over her hip.
Sheldon sleeps on his back, with Penny beside him on her side, curled up with her head against his shoulder. She sleeps soundly for the first time in weeks.
The boys stay out for a few days, but then it’s time for them to head back to Pasadena. Sheldon and Penny drive them to the airport, and on the way home, all Penny does is wonder when Sheldon will be leaving. Why he’s stayed so long. He still disappears into the fields sometimes, still comes back with his notebook gripped tightly in his hands, and she’s sure it’s just a matter of time before he decides to go back to California.
Tommy starts coming around more. Come September he helps with the harvest and Penny can’t help but be amazed by the change in him. He looks study for the first time in years, like it would take more than a swift wind to knock him off his feet. And he and Dad aren’t fighting for once, which Penny finds truly amazing.
Sam comes around sometimes, her belly growing with every visit. She’s a teacher, Penny discovers, and a part-time waitress to help cover the bills. She keeps Penny company usually, when the boys and Dad are in the field. It keeps Penny’s mind off things for the most part, but she still finds herself with a quiet moment alone in the living room, reminders of her mother everywhere. She hurts for awhile, a steady kind of grief that stings her eyes and tightens her jaw, but eventually it starts to even out. Not disappear, but ease. She sits in her mother’s place on the couch and recollects and when her eyes fill with tears, they’re not tears of grief.
She starts to notice a change in Sheldon, a restless energy about him. He’s still softer in the places she’s come to know him best, but there’s a sense that things are changing and even if she wanted, Penny couldn’t stop them. She knows it’s only a matter of time before he decides to leave, and despite herself, she knows how sad she’ll be to see him go.
The harvest is finished and winter planting not yet begun when Penny knows it’s time. Sheldon comes out of the field, and Penny can see the hayseed clinging to the leg of his pants. Behind him, the sun is setting above the trees, streaks of orange and pink along the sky. The days are starting to get shorter; it's only 7:00, and already the sun is almost down.
She leans back against the barn door and watches Sheldon approach. There's a difference in his gait, an easier, loping movement of his legs as he walks. He's still tight and controlled for the most part, but something's given way and relaxed, and she keeps her eyes on the swing of his shoulders as he walks.
He stops just in front of her, his notebook held tight in his hands. He clears his throat to speak and then pauses, looks her over, and crinkles his eyes and says, "Penny, it's time to go home."
It's what she's been waiting for him to say for the past month, ever since Mom died and the boys went back to California. It's what she's been waiting to hear every night when she curls against him in Beth’s bed, with her leg slung over his hips and his fingers wrapping softly around her knee. She clears her throat and looks past him, out over the field and into the sunset. She bites her lip and smiles at him, slow and a little bit sad.
When she pushes herself off the door, she heads past him toward the driveway, fishing the truck keys from her pocket as she walks. "Come on," she says over her shoulder, and she hears the crunch of gravel behind her as Sheldon starts to follow. She clambers into the cab of the truck, and when Sheldon slides in beside her, she starts the engine and pulls out of the driveway. She rolls the window down and drives, and Sheldon knows better than to ask where she’s taking him. There have been too many mystery trips around town for this to be anything out of the ordinary at this point, and she glances over now and again to see him looking out over the fields that pass alongside them, cornstalks clipped and cut close to the ground.
They drive for only a few minutes before Penny steers the truck down a narrow lane, tree branches scraping the sides of the cab as they pass. The way is overgrown, but Penny remembers it well enough, and then the lane opens up into a clearing, a barely discernible hill amidst all that flat prairie land. She parks the truck under a big tree, and shuts off the engine and sits. She turns to look at him after a few minutes of silence, and says, "You're going home." It's not a question, or an accusation, just a flat statement of fact. She sounds resigned. She is resigned.
He fidgets a little awkwardly beside her and says, "It's time to go back to California. I've worked out several of the kinks in my research, and I believe the new hypotheses I've devised during my time here will be of interest to many of my peers." There's a coyote howling somewhere past the clearing, and his cry is a sharp sound against the quiet. "I need to go back."
Penny lowers her head, and her hair is a curtain around her face. "Okay."
"Penny, I-" For the first time, Sheldon falters, and his voice is more uncertain when he speaks. "I want you to come back too."
It's not something Penny let herself prepare for, that Sheldon would want her to come with him. She looks up and meets his eyes, and they're wide and warm and cautious. She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off. "Penny, we need to go home."
She looks at him then, the curl of his hair against his temples and the faint lines around his eyes. She slides over toward him, and hitches a leg over his lap. His hands come up to rest against her hips, and she leans her forehead to his and says softly, "I can't."
She feels him swallow, the flutter of his muscle underneath her hand as she runs her palm up his chest and along his throat. Her fingertips skim his jaw and his Adam's apple bobs against her thumb. His breath is hot against her cheek and his voice is just a whisper when he says, “Penny, it’s time to go home.”
Penny closes her eyes and smiles into his jaw, then presses her lips to the hollow of his cheek. She pulls back and covers the spot with her palm, and when Sheldon leans into her hand just slightly, it’s all she can do not to bury her face against his neck and weep. Instead, she traces the line of his jaw with her fingertips, and uses the other hand to hold herself steady against the solidness of his chest. The sound of insects sneaks into the cab, a heavy rhythm that presses through the windows and against her ears. Maybe this is home, Penny thinks. Maybe California is just a dream, or a lie, or a fantasy.
Sheldon digs his fingers a little more soundly into her hips, and he pulls her toward him, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Penny,” he says, voice a little strangled, “it’s time to go home.”
Penny doesn’t answer, just slides her hands up to cup his face and leans down to press her mouth to his. His lips are warm beneath her own, and he slides his hands around her waist and up, flat against her back and pushing at the ends of her hair. They stay and watch the fireflies dancing in the field, and before the end of the week, Sheldon is gone.
--
With just Penny and her father left, the house is too quiet. They still spend their days on chores and farm work, but Penny visits town more, going into the city to see Tommy and Sam or hanging out with Sally. She likes to think she’s not avoiding her father but if the last few months have taught her anything, it’s the futility of trying to buy more time.
She comes home from a shift at the bar one night and from the driveway she sees a light through the window. There’s still a lamp on in the living room and when she walks in the door, she’s surprised to see her father still up, sitting quietly in her mother’s chair.
“I thought you’d be asleep.” She’s got her shoes in her hand and her purse over her shoulder, and she looks questioningly at her father when she realizes he’s reading. Not the newspaper or the mystery novels he seems to favor, but the autobiography Penny and her mother never finished. Penny had read it all after Sheldon left, but hadn’t had the heart to return it to the library.
“Alice Paul was a Quaker,” Penny says, moving to sit in the chair across from her father.
He lays the book in his lap and leans back in his chair. “I read that,” he says, and then the room is quiet again. It feels like the start of every bad conversation Penny had in high school, that usually ended in Penny’s week-long grounding. She digs her toes into the carpet and looks at the figurines on the mantle when her father asks, “When are you heading back to California?”
Penny draws herself upright and narrows her eyes. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d stick around awhile, help you get settled.” She pushes herself up roughly from her chair and makes for the stairs, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”
“Penelope, get back here.” It’s a phrase Penny’s heard a thousand times, and it’s still got the power to stop her in her tracks. She walks slowly back into the living room and levels her father with a fierce glare. “You know that’s not what I meant-” he starts, but Penny interrupts.
“That’s always what you mean.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.” Her hand grips the back of the chair so hard her knuckles are white. “You didn’t want me to go to California in the first place, why do you want me to go back now?”
“No, I didn’t want you to go to California,” he says. He leans forward in his chair, voice getting louder and louder. “I didn’t want you following that boy a thousand miles away with no plan. You were always one step behind trouble, your whole life.”
“I thought that was Tommy,” Penny bites back, “and you seem to have patched things up with him.”
Her father runs his hand over his face, the wrinkled and weathered brow. His voice is quieter when he says, “You never made it easy.”
Penny shifts from foot to foot. “Well, I’m sorry for that, then.”
“If you want you to go to California, go to California,” he says, standing up from his chair. “But I want you to go because you want to go. I don’t want you to run away to Sheldon like you ran off with Todd, and I don’t want you to go because you think you’re not welcome here.” He walks until he’s standing just next to her, and Penny works to meet his eyes. “Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want you to go to California because I wanted you here?” She holds his eyes as long as she can, and when she looks down at her hands he walks past her, up the stairs and to his room.
There’s a large part of Penny that knows her father’s not wrong. She’s self-aware enough to recognize her limits and her weaknesses when she’s forced to take a hard look at herself, and for the first time, she tries to imagine what her father’s seen over the past few years. It’s a thought that keeps her up well into the night.
--
She spends the next week trying to decide what to do. She goes back and forth in her mind and tries to suss out her true motivations, to figure out what it is she really wants. She tries to imagine what her mother would say if she were here.
“I’d go to California and lay on the beach and never leave,” Sally says.
“I’d find a hundred new ways to get in trouble,” Tommy answers.
They’re sitting on the back porch passing a bottle of cheap wine between them. Penny’s shift at the bar had ended early and Tommy had still been at the house when she and Sally got back. One thing had lead to another, stories of high school and hometown legends keeping them occupied for hours, and now they’re dissecting the details of Penny’s future.
“Here’s what it comes down to, kid,” Tommy says, leaning over and getting in her face, just like he always used to when they were young. “What do you want to do?”
An owl hoots from somewhere past the barn. There are 400 acres of her family’s land around her, and she smiles to herself and then pushes off the swing. She darts inside and grabs the truck keys off the kitchen counter and then heads back to the porch. “You two. Come on.” She walks out to the drive and hears them following behind.
She tried to get Sheldon to do this thing with her, this thing Tommy used to do with her and her friends, this stupid, dangerous thing. He’d said no, of course, but when she looks at Tommy and Sally from the cab of the truck, they give her the wicked grins she loves best and climb in beside her without a word.
They drive the truck out past the west-most field, to the flattest, straightest stretch of dirt road on the property, and Penny gets out and climbs over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. The night is dark and cool, summer fading out into the chill of fall, but the sky is clear. She can see all the stars Sheldon taught her, Orion, Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, seven sisters in the sky. She leans her head back and takes in all of it, the wide stretch of a Nebraska night sky pulling out in every direction.
“You ready?” Sally yells out from the cab. Penny grabs onto of the edge of the rear window and holds on tight. She braces her feet and sets her jaw, and the night is clear and bright and she’s alive and she could be happy.
“Go!” Penny yells, and the truck leaps forward and she tightens up instinctively, memories flooding through her and the wind cutting into her clothes. She’s hip-level with the top of the cab and Tommy’s flying down the lane and Sally’s cranking something that thuds in Penny’s already beating chest. Penny spreads her free arm out, like she’s flying, and the wind slides through her fingers, peeling her hair away from her neck.
She’s blissful. She’s ecstatic. There are tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and the wind pushes them off her face, and the night is bright and clear and when the truck finally stops, she’s still laughing.
--
The drive from Omaha to Pasadena isn’t half as long as she remembers, and she makes it all the way without breaking down once. Before she knows it she’s pulling onto the 210 and seeing street signs with names she recognizes. There’s a suitcase in the trunk and a cardboard box in the backseat filled with only the things she knew she couldn’t do without: pictures of her family, and a quilt her mother knit, and a book with an old photo to mark the page. She drives into town on a Tuesday afternoon and the first place she heads isn’t the apartment complex, it’s the University. She parks her car at a meter a block away from the guys’ building and takes off. There are students everywhere, and the air smells like green grass and blooming trees, and sand and sky and water. Penny can feel the sun on her face, and she turns her face up without even thinking.
She’s across the street from the Physics building when she sees them, Sheldon and Leonard and Raj and Howard. Sheldon’s leading the way, talking with his hands while the guys make facing behind him, and it’s so devastatingly normal and perfect that Penny freezes in her tracks. She watches them as they cross the street toward her, and her heart starts to pound. It’s like the wind in her hair in the back of the truck, only the ground beneath her feet isn’t moving. There’s a tree above her head that’s filled with white flowers, and the sky is a perfect, California shade of blue.
Sheldon suddenly looks right at her and every movement in his body stops. She sees the guys look at him in confusion, and then follow his eyes to her, and then she doesn’t see anything at all but the look on Sheldon’s face as he steps toward her.
Penny’s done waiting. She’s done wandering. She’s ready to plow forward full tilt, and with her whole life in front of her, she smiles. She runs.
-----