This is the final chapter. I sincerely hope you enjoyed The Story of Penny. I tried to incorporate as many canon references as I could while using them to build a story that not only filled in the holes in Penny's background, but left her in a better place mentally and emotionally. Thank you to Roxanne and Amber for helping me out, both intentionally and unintentionally (I looked back on year old PMs with Amber when we were trying to make sense of Young!Penny). And thank you all for reading and reviewing.

Penny moved across the hall and hurriedly shut her door, locking it and moving into her bedroom. She fell backwards onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, her hands on the sides of her eyes so she looked like a race horse wearing blinkers. The flashbacks were coming again. The bra, the broken tree, the store, the hushed voices, her father talking about 'him' being the most important. For the first time in her life she realized that the 'him' that was being referred to wasn't Evan. The conversation she'd overheard was the day Erin had shot Richard, and the 'him' that Wyatt was talking about was Teddy, her little nephew who never did figure out how she got his nose.

"I am such an idiot," she said to herself, blowing a breath out through her teeth. Was this just me? The whole time? "God," she said, covering her eyes.

She could see now that if her father hadn't taken that time, hadn't devoted those hours to Teddy, Erin and Richard might have lost him. Even if it was temporary, the experience would have changed him. Penny knew there were good foster homes out there, but she watched too much television that suggested otherwise to give them a positive connotation. She loved that boy more than almost everyone else in the world, and losing him would have hurt her terribly. She could see, too, that her father's actions toward her brother had probably kept him out of juvie. He hadn't given her that much focus because he trusted her and felt that she didn't need his guiding hand as much as the rest of the family. He had paid her the highest compliment, and she'd betrayed his trust time and time again.

"Penny?"

She sat up, wondering how Leonard got in. She shook her head, realizing he hadn't, and the sound was coming from outside her apartment door. She sighed and got up, unlocking the door and opening it just enough to stand in the threshold. "Hey."

"Can I come in?" he asked gently.

She looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed and stepped into him, curling her arms around his neck and giving a deep sigh as she felt his arms come around her. "I'm such an idiot."

"No you're not."

"You don't have to say that just because you're my boyfriend," she said.

"I'm not." He pulled away just enough to see her face. "An idiot wouldn't realize that their teenaged self could be improved upon."

She smiled. "I guess." She looked away for a moment, and then back. "But…" She trailed off, and Leonard cocked his head. "But why couldn't he recognize that I wasn't perfect? Why didn't he realize that I was getting into the wrong relationships, and I was drinking so young, and I kept having to take pregnancy tests…"

Leonard sighed. "I think he trusted you too much."

She cocked her head. "Explain, please?" She had a feeling that his opinion on the matter was nearly identical to her recent revelation, but she was still holding on to a false hope that she could be wrong, that this wasn't entirely her fault.

"Think about it," Leonard said. " Your sister would get drunk and use weapons. Your brother was sneaking around, falling in with the wrong crowd at an age that is way…way too young. That's his baby, his youngest, and a small child, practically an infant. You were his girl." He turned her head to face him. "His slugger. He thought he could afford to give the boys attention, because you were okay."

"That's taking me for granted." Penny said.

Leonard hesitated before agreeing. "But doesn't it make you feel kind of good?" He asked. "That he thought that highly of you? That he felt he could give you his trust? Of course he knows about your lying now, but back then, didn't he believe you? He bought all your stories because he didn't believe you would lie to him."

Penny pulled away from Leonard and stormed into her apartment, going into her bedroom and slamming the door. "What?" Leonard asked, following her and trying the door knob. Locked. He rapped at the door. "Penny!" She opened it and glared at him. "What did I say?" He asked.

"But doesn't it make you feel kind of good? That he thought that highly of you? That he felt he could give you his trust and blah blah blabity blah?" She mimicked. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? That I was my father's favorite? That he loved me no matter what? That all my assumptions were wrong, all of these years? That so many of my choices were based off of these assumptions that weren't actually true?" Her eyes were moist. "Can't you see? I let him down. And not by something I couldn't help, like being a girl. I did it all on my own." She turned, went over to the bed and crumpled down on it. "And after all that, he still loves me enough to want me to end up with someone like you." She covered her face with her hands. "I'm the worst daughter ever," she said. "And I got the greatest father."

Leonard looked down at his shoes, feeling like the person he was at that moment and the person Penny met years ago all at once. In a position that was all too familiar to him – not knowing what to say – Leonard came over to the bed and sat down on it, his knee just touching Penny's lower back. She rolled over and curled her arms around his, crying. He used his free hand to pull the hair from her eyes. "Your father will always love you. You know that."

"I'm calling him tomorrow," she said. "I have to. I have to tell him that I couldn't have turned out any better, and I had the potential to be so much worse."

"I'm sure he'd love to hear that," Leonard said gently.

She sat up and put her arms around his neck, pushing him into a lying position. He curled his arms around her and pulled her close to him, counting the number of times their differently paced breaths came in time with each other until she fell asleep. Twenty one. A Fibonacci number.

Howard, Bernadette, and Amy glanced at the door off and on for nearly twenty minutes after Leonard ran after Penny. "They're not coming back," Howard declared.

"Do you suspect that they are engaging in coitus?" Amy asked.

"Nah," Bernadette said. "They're probably asleep. "That said," she yawned. "We should probably go to bed, too."

"Okay, shweetie," Howard said, kissing her forehead. "Leonard's room is free."

"Sounds good," Bernadette said. "But we're just going to sleep in it, okay?"

"Of course," Howard said. "We can't do any more than that, not after what we did to his car."

Amy watched Howard and Bernadette walk hand in hand down the hall. She looked toward the apartment door, where she knew, mere yards beyond it, were her bestie and Leonard. Raj was still passed out on the floor; every now and then his foot twitched. Amy looked at him for a moment, considering her intentions, and then lifted his feet up onto the couch. She moved around the coffee table and repeated the procedure with his head and shoulders. Moving around the table again, she tugged on his feet until he was solidly on the three cushions, his head away from the door.

Amy rose, yawning herself. The traffic was probably cleared, but she was starting to feel her minor hangover starting and she needed sleep before she'd trust her cognitive functioning enough to drive home. So she headed for the hallway herself, knocking quietly once she reached the door.

Sheldon looked disoriented when he answered. "Hello, Amy."

"I need to sleep here."

Sheldon rubbed his eyes. "I'll make up the couch."

"Raj is on it," Amy said, looking past Sheldon toward his bed.

Sheldon's face stiffened. "What are you saying?"

"Sheldon, I have to work tomorrow, and if my brain is not functioning properly I won't be able to perform at the superior intellectual levels that I am used to."

Sheldon sighed. "You make a strong argument, Amy Farrah Fowler."

The two homo novi crossed the room and climbed into the bed. The bed was narrow, but luckily they were thin enough to occupy it without touching – as long as they didn't move.

"I think we can manage to sleep like this," Amy whispered.

"I can see it happening," Sheldon agreed. "But I'm warning you right now, if I fall out of bed and get a bruise, you're going to have to answer to my mother."