Final Chapter – The Incident

Penny awoke, startled from sleep by Sheldon's mutterings in the living room. Even though they'd slept together since his return from the hospital they'd yet to do 'the nasty' as Penny mentally referred to having sex with Sheldon and she was getting frustrated.

We've been living together almost 3 months and he's yet to move past kissing…really hot and nasty kissing…but I want more. I want everything and damnit, I want it now.

She slipped out of bed and held up the translucent silk robe Sheldon had insisted on buying her. Her old robe was comfortable but she had to admit that the feel of silk on her bare skin was way better than the pilled and snagged cotton flannel of her old bathrobe.

She had a thought and quickly pulled off her t-shirt and panties and slipped into the silk robe and went in search of her Moon Pie. She turned on the bedroom lamp to 'backlight' her and stood in the doorway and watched as Sheldon added lines of formulae to his white board.

"Almost there," she heard him mutter loudly to himself. Now she felt guilty. If he were on the 'cusp of discovery' as he often said, she didn't want to distract him. His work was too important.

But she did. Sheldon looked over at her and gasped but quickly recovered and smiled at her a little sadly. "I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry. You have that audition tomorrow and I interrupted your REM cycles with my mutterings, didn't I?"

"No, sweetheart, I just felt cold and rolled over to wrap around my own personal hot water bottle but he was gone. Everything going okay?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice. He'd reworked a formula and the remainder of the equation required fundamental changes and he was frustrated with himself for his earlier mistake.

Now he was really frustrated seeing Penny's obviously naked form outlined in silk against the light from their bedroom. He felt that tightening in his groin and he turned away from her in embarrassment. Sleeping next to her but not touching her was more frustrating than trying to develop the missing theorems his mind refused to release.

"I'm stuck and I fixed an error and now I have to rewrite the entire equation and hope it still works. I'm making stupid mistakes, Penny."

I can't stop thinking about you when I know you're lying in our bed and all I want to do is touch you, taste you and then possess you as a man possesses his woman – but I can't.

"Then come to bed, baby. You're overly tired and you know you need your full complement of REM to be at your best."

She walked across the small living room and took the dry marker from his hand and capped it and put it in its proper position on the tray rail and took his hand and led him back to their bedroom.

She stood beside their bed, her back to him, and whispered. "Help me off with my robe, Sheldon." He reached around and undid the belt and then ran his palms up her arms to her shoulders and she shivered.

"Are you cold, Penny? Perhaps – "

She turned in the circle of his arms and he was startled when she dropped the silk robe to the floor with a shrug of her shoulders and he beheld her naked for the first time. He'd seen 'Dream Penny' of course, but this was the Penny, his real-life dream girl and she was naked.

His voice was small and filled with a longing that made her heart race. "Ohhh, Penny…"

"Come to bed, beloved, and make me yours. I've waited for this all these weeks and I want you so bad, Sheldon. Please, don't make me beg…"

"Penny, I – I can't. I can't satisfy you the way you'll need. I'm not…I'm not Dream Sheldon who has stamina and imagination and knows just what to do to keep you teetering on the brink but teasing you until you scream for release. I'm just me…Sheldon. If you're the Big Ol' Five then I'm a negative value approaching infinity."

She was stunned by his 'confession' and sad that she hadn't realized before that, of course, the real Sheldon would be nothing like the 'Dream Sheldon' although she knew that underneath those t-shirts and plaid pants there lurked the kernal of 'Dream Sheldon' since it was her Sheldon's subconscious that created him.

She tugged untied the draw string of his sleep pants and smiled up at him. The difference in their heights made her feel small and innocent and she blushed. Penny pulled down his pants and pulled him towards their bed. He never broke eye contact with her and she knew he was embarrassed by his sudden nakedness.

"Take off the shirt, Sheldon. I want to feel your skin against mine. I want – I want us to make love and if it's not perfect the first time, that's okay. We'll just keep trying until we get it right. Isn't that what all great scientists do? Keep striving until they reach perfection?"

He smiled nervously when she drew him down beside her. He felt very comfortable kissing Penny but the sudden addition of the variable of nakedness created tension that had gradually disappeared over time but now was back with a vengeance.

"Hey, Shel, it's okay. We have forever to get it right. I'm not going anywhere, Sheldon. I'm going to stay by your side no matter what happens. That what people in love do, y'know? They stand together and face whatever life throws at them."

For a first time, it wasn't bad, not really. Penny had been 'instructive' (Right there, Sheldon, that's right, now relax and let me do the work) and Sheldon had followed her instructions. They touched each other freely during the 'afterglow' and all the walls that Sheldon had crafted were almost gone.

Penny wiped a few strands of hair off her face and snuggled closer to the last man she'd ever be intimate with. "Y'know, Shel, practice makes perfect. Keep that in mind because I intend to practice this a lot, baby."

Sheldon was almost asleep, thoroughly relaxed and feeling loved by someone not related to him for the first time in his life. Something seemed to snap in his head and he felt a moment of dizziness and then…

"Eureka! That's it!" He leaned over and kissed Penny with all the passion of a veteran lover and then jumped up and ran out into the living room.

"Sheldon! What the hell?" She was lying on her stomach on the floor. He'd dumped her off the bed in his hast to get at his white boards.

She pulled on the silk robe that had started it all and stormed out into the living room determined to teach her boyfriend some 'social protocols' but stopped when she saw the look on his face.

He turned to her and she gasped at the tears on his cheeks and was suddenly fearful of a relapse.

"Penny, I've done it. I've solved the theorem and proven String Theory and I owe it all to you, Penny. You've brought nothing but chaos into my life and now…joy and peace and disorganization and spontaneity and – and that was all I ever needed. You were all I ever needed."

Sheldon Cooper never looked back. He looked forward and what he saw, he made happen.

Sheldon and Penny Cooper were married at a small church outside Omaha, Nebraska. The bride wore her mother's wedding dress with one major alteration: a hidden zipper was sewn into the side panel. All those buttons…

A/N: It's done. Thanks for reading along. Sorry for the sucky fluffy ending but I could use a happy ending.

Reparata

6/22/2012