Chapter Ten: Labor Day Barbecue

They rolled to a gentle stop before Amy smoothly guided the car in reverse to parallel park across the street from Mrs. Wolowitz' house. They were supposed to arrive a little earlier to help set up for the barbecue only Amy gripped the steering wheel like her sanity depended on it. She couldn't quite make herself let go.

'When did life become so out of control?' she wondered.

"We'll be ok, Amy. You'll see." Leonard's gentle assurance helped her ease her grip on the car enough to focus on unbuckling her seat belt.

"This is going to be really awkward," she replied. "I'm not sure I'm ready for this."

"Yeah, this'll be pretty weird," he said gazing across the street. "But this is the best way to get through this." He took her icy hand into his own. "I promise I won't leave you alone."

She turned to look at him with tears prickling at her eyes and a grateful, watery smile. "Thanks for that but you know that won't stop them from cornering me if they really wanted to."

"I know." He rubbed her hand between his somehow lending her some strength. "I still say we should get this over with and if it gets to be too much we can go home. We can just tell them you're not feeling well and make our escape." Amy smiled at that.

"I never realized how useful pregnancy could be to get me out of awkward situations," she leveled him a rueful smile. "Should have done it sooner." Leonard's chuckle got a genuine smile out of her. With one last sigh, she got out of the car.

Alright, let's get this over with, she thought as she rang the bell.

Mrs. Wolowitz made no bones about the absolute joy she felt at Amy's news and wrapped her up in a fierce hug and held her tight enough to make her want to cry (though later she would blame her watery eyes on the astringent scent of Ben-Gay that perfumed the older woman). As she pulled out of the embrace Bernie caught her eye and gave her a determined look that clearly said 'We have to talk'. Mrs. Wolowitz went into a diatribe about hormones and cravings. She slipped a meaty hand through the crook of Amy's arm and led her through the house and out again to the back yard.

They politely greeted Mr. Rostenkowski, Bernie's dad, as they walked past the grill he was manning. The scent of burning flesh made Amy's stomach protest with disgust. Leonard must have noticed because he awkwardly announced he would get her some ginger ale.

After sharing a few of her fondest morning sickness stories, Mrs. Wolowitz got up to answer the door. Bernie swooped in out of nowhere and took her mother-in-law's vacated seat. Every muscle in Amy's body tensed up before she could even think to hide her very physical flinch.

"It's okay, Amy. I'm not mad at you," said Bernie when she caught the flinch. "I only want to make sure you're okay."

Amy started to relax and looked at her friend for a long moment before answering. "I'm…coping." She tilted her head to the side with a perplexed expression. "How did you know… I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm asking." Bernadette placed a hand over hers.

"It's okay," she said consolingly. "I grew up with a dad for a detective and a mom for a lawyer. You pick up a thing or two about body language when you try to not get caught misbehaving as a kid." Amy let out a relieved laugh at that.

"Seriously, Amy. We've been friends for a while. I do pay attention to your feelings even when you try to hide them. I know that you've been giving me the cold shoulder because you think I'll take Penny's side in this drama over yours. I know that's how you feel you need to protect yourself from the hurt of rejection. That's not how real friendships work. Yeah, we'll get mad at each other and argue. We'll have disagreements and occasionally hurt each other but real friendship is just as much about getting through the bad times as well as enjoying the good. I know things are weird right now but I'm not mad. I promise we'll get through this."

Amy tried to blink away her tears as she smiled at her friend. "Thank you, Bernadette. This means so much to me."

Leonard watched from the refreshment table as his two friends made up. Leonard decided to check his messages as he lingered by the drinks to give them a little time. He was a bit perturbed at the terse tone of Sheldon's reply to his moving notice. Anyone else wouldn't notice anything wrong with the email but after living with the Texan genius for so many years Leonard certainly knew better. Sheldon always took the time to write him overly long emails unnecessarily explaining ideas he was already aware of to the point of condescension. This email, at one sentence acknowledging the formal dissolution of their Roommate Agreement, was politely terse.

He was uncomfortable with the slowly growing hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach and jumped at the welcome distraction of pouring Amy's ginger ale. The distraction worked well enough until he turned around to see David enveloping his Amy in a tight hug. Leonard felt anger and dark possessiveness swell up in him. He took a few moments to calm down. He didn't want to upset Amy by creating a scene but he was going to assert his presence.

He casually walked over to the table and just as 'casually' draped his arm across the back of her chair when he sat down. His gaze steadily holding David's.

"Thanks for the drink, Leonard," she said awkwardly and looked over to Bernadette for help. Bernadette picked up on what was happening and jumped in to head off a tense situation.

"Hey, Leonard," she waited until he looked at her. "I'd like you to meet my cousin David. I don't think you two met at the reception. David, Leonard works with Howie at Cal Tech." The tall handsome man gave him a friendly smile and reached out his hand over the table. After a pause, Leonard stood up placing his left hand on Amy's shoulder to shake the sandy-haired man's hand with his right.

"Nice to meet you, Leonard," he said as their hands released. David turned to the taller, olive-skinned man beside him who was just as handsome. "This is Marco. The love of my life," he beamed.

After another round of introductions, Bernadette swooped in again and herded David and his Marco to the refreshment table leaving Leonard and Amy to their own devices.

"Fuck," the buzzing in his head was so loud that Leonard didn't notice he'd spoken out loud.

"What's wrong?" asked Amy.

"I'm such an idiot."

"Why, what happened?"

"David was the reason I drank so much at the reception."

"What?" she scowled with confusion. "I'm not following."

"It's really stupid."

"We said we'd share everything. Tell me anyway."

"Well," he started. "I guess he was more of a catalyst than the reason. The reason I started drinking was to block out my extreme jealousy. David was the catalyst. I was watching when he introduced himself to Penny and saw when he made her laugh in like two seconds. It upset me because we'd been fighting the whole week leading up to the reception. They started dancing and she looked happier with him in the two minutes they'd known each other than any of the years that we'd been together. That made me super jealous and knocked back a couple of flutes of champagne. It loosened me up long enough to face what I was really feeling. She just sparkled from within. I realized that the last time she sparkled that way for me was the first time we hooked up. It was when we got back from the Arctic. After that day we've sort of didn't want to face up to the fact that it was a onetime thing and stayed together when we probably shouldn't have. Right around when they started slow dancing I figured out that she wasn't into me and was deeply hurt at the idea that she was just with me because she didn't want to disappoint me by telling me that it wasn't working out. Then I felt stupid for putting a lot more effort into staying together than she did and not realizing that it's been over between us for a long time. I didn't want to deal with the fall out right then and decided to drink myself stupid."

"That's a perfectly understandable reaction."

"Wait, it gets worse," he said as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "At some point, I made the conscious decision to not break up with Penny immediately. I came up with this… idiotic plan to…um…drift away from Penny." At this, Amy's eyebrows shot up.

"You see," he started. "Days after the, uh, incident, Penny was already talking about David all the time and spent a lot of time with him and they talked and texted all the time. I figured that they were flirting and seeing each other and that Penny hadn't even realized that she'd already moved on. So I thought that if I slowly spent less and less time and she wouldn't notice that we weren't together anymore or if she did notice she'd just break it off and our friendship would be mostly intact."

"Um…WOW," she said not knowing how to really respond.

"I know," he continued. "I'm aware I was being an idiot but in my defense, I'd been feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing which made me lose a lot of sleep. I wasn't exactly thinking rationally. And now I feel like a huge ass for not being upfront with Penny or even bothering to find out the nature of their relationship. It makes me feel like I'm a shitty person." Leonard cast his eyes downward not willing to see the disappointment in her eyes. He was shocked to hear the woman next to him actually laugh.

"I'm sorry Leonard. I'm not laughing at you. I find it kind of humorous that I was doing the same thing. Not just with Sheldon but with our other friends as well," said as she wiped tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes. "A little bit ago, Bernadette made me see that I was trying to protect myself from rejection. I think that you were doing the same thing."

She put her hand over his. "I think that if we work at being good friends to each other we'll get through this." Leonard smiled and turned his head to see who the newcomers were. He stiffened and the smile fell from his face.

Sheldon and Penny arrived.

Mike spent two decades of his career as a detective for the Los Angeles Police Department honing his observations skills. Yeah, the academy teaches a lot of your basic skills but it takes talent and drive to develop those skills such that you are aware of who is in the room and where. Who's wearing what and who's talking to who. Those level of those skills determines how quickly you can solve a case so that justice can be served to the parties that are actually guilty. Truly exceptional detectives continue to hone their skills even into retirement.

He may have been manning the grill but he was watching his daughter interact with her husband and his friends. He knew that there was some sort of major shift in the group dynamic. He could tell by the sheepish look on the Indian scientist's face when talking to his daughter. Bernie's husband had the look of a man that had just gotten hen-pecked to submission by his wife for the first time. He would have chalked it up to the beginning of the end the honeymoon period if it wasn't for the way his son-in-law's mother was fussing over his daughter's quirky neurologist friend. He caught snippets of the baby talk as they walked past him. He watched as the short, bespectacled scientist hovered almost protectively behind them. That sort of behavior wasn't really odd for that young man. What was odd was who the protectiveness was directed toward. Mike was used to seeing Leonard behave that way toward the attractive blond actress he was dating.

So, yeah. Something big must have changed.

He watched as Leonard stood by the refreshment table staring at his phone, lost in thought with a scowl on his face. His nephew David walk out into the back yard with his partner Marco in tow to greet him with a hug. His sister's kid was a good man as well as an accomplished detective. He should know, he taught the kid almost everything he knew. His nephew moved on to greet his daughter and her friend and he turned back to continue observing Leonard.

The young man's features flashed with anger and something else before he quickly turned and focused his attention to pouring ice and ginger ale in a red cup. He watched as he strode back across the yard to Bernie's friend Amy. Mike nearly had to bite his lip to keep from snickering at the scene of the young scientist marking his territory from his nephew.

Boy, if there was any a lost cause…

His chest swelled with pride at the way his daughter skillfully maneuvered her cousin and her friend away from a tense situation. She was the only one of his children whom he taught to read a room with precision. He saw the moment she worked out what was happening and allowed himself a small smirk.

She's really good. Pity she didn't maximize the use of her talents in law enforcement or politics. She's a force to be reckoned with.

Mike continued to grill piles of beef patties and a few veggie patties and kept his eyes on his work for the time being until he heard the scraping of a chair on cement.

Leonard scurried to the refreshment table as his attractive girlfriend walked to Amy with a small gift card that had a drawing of a stork flying through the air carrying a baby in a basked in its beak.

Oh.

He couldn't hear what they were saying over the roar of the fire and the sizzling of meat but it didn't take a genius to figure out that Amy was pregnant. He saw when Amy removed the tissue paper to reveal pale green baby booties. Penny was saying something and then Amy wrapped her arms around her friend with tears streaming down her face. Her friend hugged her back. When they pulled apart the pretty blond was drying her own tears. That's when he noticed it: a slim, pale patch of skin on the third finger on the tan of her left hand. Now, under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have been a big deal except that Sheldon shook Amy's hand awkwardly with his right hand. His left thumb hooked on the pocket of his tan Dockers and he noticed a strip of pale skin also on the third finger of his left hand.

How interesting.

This gang of misfits was very interesting.

Even more interesting was the way that Sheldon was hovering near Penny. And Penny for all of her talent as an actress was having trouble keeping her hands to herself. She wasn't touching him but she kept caressing the air as if she wanted to reach out and hold his hand. Eventually, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her shorts.

So they're married and keeping it quiet.

Mike could already see this plan was going to be a disaster. Personally, he felt like he should talk sense to Sheldon. He was a lost boy and his old man wasn't around to let him know that it was a foolish course of action. While he was at it, he made a mental note to make himself available to Leonard—another lost boy. He recalled how nerve-wracking it was to be a first-time father. He could only imagine that it was that much harder to do the right thing with a friend who was a drunken one night stand. He saw the enthusiasm Leonard put into knocking back all those drinks at the reception. That was really the only logical way to explain his sudden possessiveness over Amy. That's the only way to explain why Sheldon and Penny are ignoring Leonard and why his sulking son-in-law and his friend are acting weirder than normal.

He started serving up burgers as quickly as he could. Once he was done he grabbed his plate and a can of beer and moved off to the corner of the yard to continue to think about some of his observations.

Sheldon moved carefully with his plate in one hand and a beer in the other.

"May I sit with you?" he asked the older man. Mike looked up at the tall scientist who was handing him a fresh can of beer.

"Yeah. I already got one, thanks."

"At the rate that you've been drinking, I estimate that you only have about a quarter left. I thought bringing one along would save you a trip to the cooler." Mike accepted the offering. They eat in easy silence while absently taking in the breezy afternoon air. Eventually, the crack of a newly opened beer can disturbed the quiet between them.

Sheldon barely resisted the smirk of satisfaction that wanted to form on his face. He was glad he brought the other man the peace offering before broaching what was on his mind. It was a practiced move he used with his own father when he was young and needed to ask uncomfortable human behavioral questions. He gave Mike a chance to enjoy the first few sips of his drink before asking any questions.

"So, Sheldon," Mike started, "where are you keeping your wedding ring?" Sheldon whipped his head around to look at his companion. Part of him was glad he hadn't opened the water bottle in his pocket. The other part figured it wouldn't be a good idea to play innocent with the retired detective.

"Are we that obvious?"

"No. You and the missus don't have obvious tells. I noticed the matching tan lines on both of your hands. The missus caught herself reaching for your hand a few times until she started keeping her hands in her pockets and you hover just inside her personal space." He kept his gaze straight ahead and took a sip before continuing. "But to be fair, that can be easily explained with the fact that you associate her with peace and comfort. From what I can tell this is a difficult time with your gang."

He turned to give Sheldon a meaningful look. Sheldon stared back for a moment not bothering to hide his surprise.

"It's on a chain around my neck," he said, mouth suddenly dry. "You must think me reckless for jumping into a marriage on the heels of a severed romantic relationship." The barest of smiles touched his mouth before he turned his gaze back on the rest of people mingling in the backyard.

"Nah. I get it. Me and the wife got married not six months after we started dating. When you find the person that you wanna share your life with, it makes sense to go for it. Though my situation is slightly different. I never once hid my marriage."

"I'm not hiding my marriage," Sheldon protested. "Our peer group has already suffered enough upheaval. We decided to keep things quiet until she moves in with me and things settle down. We also need to tell our parents first."

"I suppose that makes sense given the circumstances. Don't wait too long to tell people thought, you don't wanna end up friendless and without a wife."

"I don't think Penny would leave me."

"I don't think she would either. Good women don't like to be treated like a dirty little secret. You should start romancing her to ensure she won't leave."

"We're already married. What good will that do?" he asked curiously.

"Well, the point of dating is to check for compatibility for a successful long term commitment. Along with that, dating is supposed to be the time when you deepen your bond. The good news is that because you were friends for a few years you're already aware of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Living in close quarters for that same amount of time you've become familiar with each other's habits and that takes a lot of the mystery out of your relationship. What you're missing for this to be a successful marriage is the romance during the dating period that helps deepen your bond. You follow so far?" Sheldon nodded before mike continued.

"Romance is the element of surprise that allows fondness to grow into love. It's fine if the two of you keep things quiet for now but relationships need sunlight to flourish. It would be strategically advantageous to date your wife to make up for jumping into marriage and truly bind her to you."

Sheldon opens his mouth to reply but notices when Leonard walks up to speak to him.

A/N: I know it's been a minute and I appreciate your patience while I handled RL. Hope you like.