Time

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

-"Time", Pink Floyd

Set in Season 4, does not follow a particular episode or adhere as closely to the plot as my previous episode-titled stories. Enjoy!

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Priya moved out a week ago. All of her belongs – gone. Leonard had pleaded her to stay. Almost desperately.

Priya had refused. She explained to him calmly that her heard couldn't be in it if his wasn't. Leonard didn't understand. He tried to grab the folded blouses from her bag as she folded them in, willing her to understand the situation and give it one more try.

.

The situation: uncomfortable with Leonard's friendship with Penny, Priya requested that Leonard cut hi ties from her. Stop talking to her, stop seeing her, everything. Leonard was uncomfortable hearing this. He mulled over it, wrung it out in his mind, and came to Priya with his final decision: "I don't think I can do that, Priya."

So, Priya yelled. Explained her side of the story in an angry, jealous decibel that eventually ended with her breaking up with him venomously. Leonard tried to get her to stay, to coax her out of her rage by telling her that friendship did not equate to romance, and that Penny was merely a friend.

.

Now, Leonard begged her to understand the situation. To understand his point of view: he couldn't drop a friend who had done nothing wrong! Leonard appreciated Penny's friendship. He had long since dropped the resentment for her breaking up with him and decided to focus on their friendship. He'd come to appreciate her in a far more platonic way; she brought balance and spunk to their foursome.

"Priya, just stay."

She didn't. She left that evening, moving her things back into Raj's apartment until she could find a place of her own.

.

A week of heartache passed. Leonard spent long evenings in his lab at the university, trying to distract himself from the reality that, not only had he lost a wonderful girlfriend in Priya, he had failed another relationship. In general.

He tried to calculate where he went wrong. With Stephanie, it was his apprehension to fuse their lives and his inordinate fascination with his neighbour. With Penny, it was the inordinate fascination that pushed her away. With Priya, it was… stubbornness? The inability to compromise and bend?

To let go? Of his inordinate fascination?

.

Three weeks ago: Priya sat Leonard down on a bench in the park and spoke to him with meticulous articulation.

"Leonard, I need you to stop seeing Penny."

Just like that. She was frank. Her arms were crossed over her corduroy jacket and she was not smiling. Her lips were pursed, in fact. "It's just something that I can't deal with."

Three weeks ago, later that day after he and Priya had returned from the park, Leonard walked across the hall and knocked on Penny's door. His stomach was tied in knots. She had opened the door with breeziness, and said: "Yo, is the food home yet?"

Yo, is the food home yet.

Later that evening he would analyze that sentence. He would notice the comfortableness in it, the way she put their lives together under the umbrella of "home". In his analysis, he came to think that Priya may have picked up on something that he wasn't aware of. Maybe he hadn't noticed how intertwined his life was with Penny.

At her door, he had said: "Penny, I need to talk to you about something." He explained the situation to her as it stood – in a roundabout way, of course – and waited for her to flip out. Leonard had expected a violent, territorial reaction of their friendship from her, but all he got from her was the most humiliating flush of pink on her cheeks, glassy eyes, and a "I completely understand. Sorry. I'll just make grilled cheese for supper." She had closed the door in his face with no aggression, leaving him in their hallway, totally stunned.

-tbc

Author's note: I'll post a new chapter as soon as I can. This was written from a couple of days ago, so the new one should be up soon. Please leave your thoughts in the form of a review! - Leah