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Billie Jenkins dies in a dark room with her sister’s screams echoing in her ears.
The Halliwell sisters take care of what’s left of her in the aftermath.
Piper cooks; french toast, orange and poppyseed muffins, chicken broth and a dozen other dishes that taste like ash in her mouth.
Paige wakes her every morning. Makes sure she gets up and dressed. Brings her books and crossword puzzles. Makes a nest on the lounge so that they can marathon episodes of The Good Wife and Boston Legal.
Phoebe looks at her with eyes that see too much. Kind and careful. Sometimes Phoebe stays over. Crawls into bed with her when she can’t sleep. Body curling around hers while they both pretend that she’s not shaking apart.
Her dreams are full of fire and shadows, and when she sleeps she never makes the right choices in time.
She feels hollowed out. Empty. Her skin feels unfamiliar to her, like an ill fitting costume. She digs her nail into her forearm and feels nothing. Paige wipes away the blood and treats the cuts with antiseptic.
She doesn’t go to college anymore.
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She comes home one day, after Leo takes her out with Wyatt and Chris for ice cream in the park. There had been two sisters playing on the swings and she had felt terror at the easy way they had held each other. Ice cream had melted all over her hand and Leo had cleaned it up, patient and gentle, and then bought them all home.
There are boxes in her room. Filled with stuff from the dorm. They are labeled in black marker: Billie Jenkins. She runs her fingers over the name and then goes down to the kitchen to collect a large bin bag.
It takes a little over four hours to get through everything. Piper interrupts intermittently, hovering anxiously in the doorway, opening her mouth and then closing it. She doesn’t say anything though. She suspects that later Piper will retrieve the discarded things, keep them somewhere in case she changes her mind.
She won’t.
She ends up with two boxes and a suitcase full of clothes.
The next day she cuts her own hair and changes her name. Asks Phoebe for help. Phoebe writes a spell and then takes her to the DMV to make sure it’s worked, and to get her a new license.
A new life.
Penny Halliwell is a college dropout. Penny Halliwell is an only child, with three cousins. Or maybe she has three sisters (four, if you count the dead). The important thing is that Penny Halliwell never had a sister called Christy Jenkins.
Penny Halliwell has cute bangs and doesn’t do magic.
That night the house is full. Wyatt clings and keeps orbing Chris to sit in her lap. Leo smiles, presses kisses into her hair. Coop and Henry tell her stories, with exaggerated hand gestures. The sisters crowd close, whisper “welcome to the family” in her ear and she knows that they understand that this is the beginning of the end.
Or maybe it’s the end of a beginning.
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Penny Halliwell owns two full boxes, one suitcase full of clothes, and buys a run down car on craigslist. It’s red and smells a little like wet cat. Leo looks over it carefully, shows her how to change the oil and top up the water. She doesn’t catch them in the act, but she’s certain that the sisters have cast at least a dozen spells on the engine and interior. It doesn’t have any eau du feline anymore, and is suspiciously cheap to run.
On a warm day in late fall, she moves to L.A. Packs her boxes and suitcase into her little red car. Kisses her friends (sisters) goodbye and doesn’t look back.
She finds a one bedroom apartment in a half decent suburb. Carries up her belongings and furnishes it with second hand goods she finds online.
She dreams in black and white, and the silence is so loud it hurts.
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Piper calls her every Sunday.
"Hey you," she says, like a ritual, “how are things in the city of stars?”
They talk about all the things that don’t matter. Coop has moved in with Phoebe. Paige and Henry have separated, but Piper is pretty sure they’re still sleeping together.
They don't talk about magic.
Sometimes Piper gives the phone to Wyatt, who calls her Aunty Penny and tells her how big Chris is getting, his words careful and serious. She presses her fingers to her mouth as she listens. Ignores the empty feeling in her chest.
Penny picks up odd jobs, dog walking, car detailing, and late night shifts at the local supermarket. She decides to try acting. She’s spent most of her life pretending to be someone else. It seems like a good fit.
When people ask, she tells them that she’s from Omaha. A country girl chasing her dreams all the way to the big city. She becomes someone who buys too many cute clothes, likes bright colours, and is too busy to pick up after herself.
She can’t remember if this is what she had been like before her family fell apart. Before her world became a never ending list of impossibilities. She tells herself that it doesn’t matter.
She meets Kurt at a casting call. Falls too fast and tells herself it’s love. The sex is good and it’s nice having someone to share her space with again. He moves in, adds his name to the lease.They go out at the weekends, dance and drink and stay out late. She makes friends who talk about normal things like careers, love, the outrageous price of shoes, and whether anything on Lost will ever make sense.
She gets a regular job as a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory and slowly replaces some of her hand-me-down furniture. Picks up some modelling work for a budget retail catalogue and earns a small part in a amateur production. She has two lines, a costume that smells like bleach, and it still feels like an accomplishment.
Then Penny comes home one afternoon to find Kurt naked with some Californian co-ed on the rug they had bought the weekend before.
She kicks them both out. Locks herself in the bathroom. Sits in her small tub and cries, tears hot against her cheeks. Forgets, for a moment, that Penny Halliwell isn’t a witch and almost casts half-a-dozen spells before she makes herself leave.
She takes her name off the lease and hires a truck. Has a nice couple from the ground floor help her move her belongings. She can’t believe how much crap she’s accrued in a little over twelve months. She leaves a note for Kurt along with the spare key. Phoebe calls her while she’s driving to the new place she found.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Penny says.
“Do you want us to come down there?”
She hasn’t seen any of them since she left.
“I’m fine,” she says, and knows that Phoebe will hear that she still needs time.
That she still needs space.
“We love you,” Phoebe tells her.
“I know,” she says around the burning sensation in her throat. “Me too.”
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Her new place is tiny. A one bedder in an old block of apartments that have seen better days. She convinces a couple of guys hanging around on the street outside to help her move the heavy things up the stairs. Gives them money for pizza as a thank you and carries the boxes herself. She’s moved everything and returned the truck by the time she meets her new neighbours.
Two scientists. Both too smart for their own good. Awkward, careless and sweet in equal measure. She looks at their whiteboards covered in equations, mapping out concepts she can’t understand, and deliberately does not think about what they would make of the physics of telekinesis and molecular manipulation.
Piper still calls every Sunday.
Penny tells her about Sheldon and Leonard and their friends. Complains about the fact that Sheldon keeps trying to break into her apartment to tidy her living room, clean her kitchen, and organise her closet. Piper doesn’t laugh, but Penny can hear the smile in her voice when she pretends to sympathise. The traitor. She talks, as well, about Leonard’s painfully awkward crush. Tells stories about her shifts at the Cheesecake Factory. The odd auditions she goes to.
Piper says that Chris has started talking, that Wyatt never stops. That Leo has a part-time job at a local daycare centre and that she is thinking of opening a restaurant again. Phoebe is going on a international book tour, with Coop. Paige has gone back into social work and spends half her time avoiding Henry, and the other half talking to Piper about him.
There are no awkward silences despite the weight of all the words they never say.
“I miss you,” says Piper, instead of saying goodbye, one day. “We all do.”
“I miss you too,” says Penny, for the first time, meaning every word.
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Despite Leonard’s infatuation with her, she actually spends more time with Sheldon, who freaks out about her driving and talks rapidly about concepts that go way over her head, and asks her to answer questions about ridiculously obvious stuff. He has an opinion on everything and a calendar dedicated to her menstrual cycle, which is really weird. And Penny has a fairly impressive tolerance for weirdness. But he also makes her a poncho and cooks her eggs for breakfast everyday for a week when he temporarily loses his job. His omelettes are particularly good.
“I used the free range, organic eggs,” he says, when she compliments his cooking.
“Just say, ‘thank you’, Sheldon,” she tells him firmly, before he can launch into what will probably be a complex scientific breakdown of the chemistry of breakfast.
Frequently, when Sheldon is being particularly obtuse, she thinks he might have Aspergers or, at the very least, a complete lack of empathy. Other times, like when Leonard is stressing about whether a girl is just looking in his direction or actually checking him out, she shares a knowing look with Sheldon and figures that he understands more than he lets on.
In between hanging out with the boys, she attends more auditions. She’s never going to be a singer, or a dancer, but she gets some work as an extra and is selected for a few more small roles. Leonard and Sheldon (and sometimes Raj and Howard) come to all her plays and one day, while flicking through their TiVo account, she finds that someone has been recording all the episodes of shows she’s appeared in the background of.
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Paige visits, on a cool day in late spring. Orbs in somewhere nearby, and then walks up the stairs and knocks on her door. Her hair is bright red and she smells like jasmine and clean air when she hugs Penny. She looks around the small apartment, hands on her hips.
"Nice," she says, lips twisting into a half smile. "But, and I can't believe I'm actually saying this, it could kind of do with a clean."
Penny pulls her hair up into a ponytail and doesn't roll her eyes.
"Piper must be rubbing off on you," she says.
"Yeah," says Paige, but she doesn't sound all that upset about it. “I thought your neighbour kept this place tidy.”
“Only when he steals my spare key,” she says, digging out her cleaning supplies from under the sink.
Paige laughs and puts on a pair of neon pink gloves, wiggling her fingers and wrinkling her nose.
“Been a while since I did this the old fashioned way,” she says, grinning.
“You are so weird,” says Penny.
Sheldon knocks on the door while they're half way done in the kitchen.
"Penny," he says, when she opens the door.
"Sheldon," she says, knowing he can’t read her tone.
"You're cleaning," he says, seemingly forgetting the reason he came over. “And you have a guest.”
Penny opens the door wider, resigning herself to the inevitable. Paige is an unstoppable force, Sheldon is an immovable object. And hey, maybe she’s learnt a thing or two from these guys, after all.
Sheldon invites himself to their unscheduled cleaning party and then Paige makes him stay for takeout. They argue about Stargate, over Penny who’s sitting in the middle, and Paige makes some hilarious faces. Penny doesn’t even try to hide the fact that she’s enjoying herself.
“Are you staying over?”
Paige looks at her, mouth slightly open, eyes wide.
“Can I?”
“Of course,” says Penny, taking her hand in both her own and squeezing. “You can bunk with me. It’d be nice. If you stayed.”
Paige smiles, wide and bright, with uncomplicated happiness.
“Sure,” she says.
Penny ushers Sheldon out, when Paige goes to the bathroom.
“You and your cousin share very few genetic similarities,” he says.
“Goodnight, Sheldon,” she says, pushing him over the threshold.
“Thank you for introducing me,” he says overly formal, before she can close the door in his face.
It sounds like one of things he has been taught to say, but also like he means it.
“Thanks for helping with the cleaning,” she says, resisting an impulse to curtsy.
“Does that mean-?”
“Goodnight, Sheldon,” she says, cutting him off and closing the door before he can start up about her personal hygiene again.
Paige borrows a pair of her pyjamas and insists on being the big spoon.
“Henry never lets me,” she says, slightly whiny.
“Are you guys still together, or what?”
Paige huffs out a warm breath, which feels really strange on the back of Penny’s neck.
“We’re still figuring some stuff out,” she says.
“But you love him?”
“Yeah,” says Paige, sounding, not exactly happy, but wistfully content. “I really do.”
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After a year goes by she finally admits that her and Leonard have a thing. He obsesses over her. She kisses him. He pines. She freaks out and fucks around with guys who are really hot and really dumb. Then they do it all over again. Phoebe calls it a vicious cycle and several other more psychoanalytical, and less flattering, terms.
Then the boys go on a field trip (“a scientific expedition” says the Sheldon voice, which has taken up residence in her head) to the Arctic. It’s awful. She misses them all so much.
“When did they become my best friends?”
“You basically live at their house,” says Piper, reasonable as always, “and you rarely talk about anyone else these days. How did you not see this coming?”
“I don’t like you,” says Penny, “put Chris on the phone. He’s a much better listener.”
She gets Wyatt instead, who is really excited about preschool and convincing everyone that he is a totally normal human boy.
“Enjoy that while it lasts,” says Penny, when Piper is back on the line. “His teenage rebellion is going to be epic.”
“I’m hanging up now,” says Piper, “you’re damaging my calm.”
The boys come home. She makes out with Leonard and then yells at him, Howard and Raj for fucking things up for Sheldon.
“You’re all just a bunch of spoilt children,” she says, rolling her eyes and thinking fondly for the first time about the three months they weren’t around.
Not really.
She does go to Texas though, to get Sheldon. Sheldon’s mother is still very religious and her house is covered in crosses and some pretty disturbing crucifixion imagery. Penny likes her, but also worries that if she knew about witches she might try and burn them all at the stake.
“Pack your things,” she tells Sheldon, once she’s eaten four ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches, and listened to an argument between Missy and her mother in which the phrase ‘sexual congress’ had been used way too many times. “We’re going home.”
He sulks and talks about things that she doesn’t understand or care about. She catches a few extremely unflattering descriptions of their friends in the midst of his tirade, which she figures are probably well earned.
“Flight leaves in three hours,” she says, after he’s worn himself out, opening up his suitcase on the bed. “If we miss it I’ll be forced to hire a car and drive you back.”
They have a brief Mexican stand off, where he tries to stare her down. She can see the fear in his eyes though, at the thought of her behind the wheel for an extended journey, and she knows that she’s won.
She makes Sheldon pay her back for the plane tickets. She’s not made of money and he was at least fifty percent responsible for the shit-storm in the Arctic.
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After a few false starts (including that one deeply traumatic incident where he had referenced Oedipus) she starts dating Leonard. It’s. Nice.
Normal.
He tells her she's pretty, treats her like something precious, breakable. She can't remember the last time someone did that.
Sometimes she daydreams about telling him her secrets. Imagines the perfect 'o' of surprise his mouth will make. Sees clearly his frown and the way his eyes with soften with something like sympathy. But when she thinks about showing him, she can only visualise the way he will shrink back. Look at her with awe. With fear.
So she keeps quiet.
She likes Leonard. Believes that with enough time she could love him. He opens doors for her, listens attentively, believes she could be better. He's everything she should want.
There are times though, when he looks at her and sees all the things she’s not. Times when she drinks a little too much, falls into bed with him, and hopes the alcohol will soften the fact that she feels lost.
She still doesn't know what she wants.
"How did you know, with Leo?"
Piper is quiet on the other end of the line.
"He made me happy," she says, eventually, "he made me feel special. And I wanted to make him feel happy and special in return."
Penny curls up on the lounge, phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear.
"Sounds nice," she says, even though she's not sure if that’s what she wants.
"Penny," says Piper, the first time she's ever used her name, "love means different things to different people."
"I know," says Penny, her throat tight. "I know."
"You'll find someone," Piper says. "Someone who’s right for you. You deserve to be happy."
Penny almost believes her.
Occasionally she imagines what it would be like to tell Sheldon, but it's always a short-lived fantasy because she can't picture his reaction at all.
Leonard finds out about her psychic and his casual mocking shouldn’t hurt, but it does. A sting that pierces her down to the core. He doesn’t know better, isn’t familiar with this part of her life. She doesn’t actually go to the woman for fortunes, but as a very big favour to Paige, who is balancing social work with her white-lighter duties, far more successfully than she used to. Probably because she’s learnt how to delegate.
Leonard tries to break down the science for her. Shows her numbers and countless articles. Hand drawn diagrams of dissected brains.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” he says, exasperation making his tone sharper than usual.
Penny looks at him and thinks about dark rooms and little girls torn apart by things that go bump in the night.
“Magic,” she says, the word heavy on her tongue, “is just science we don’t understand yet. Isn’t that right?”
She’s pretty sure that Sheldon had said that, once. When they’d been playing Halo together. Leonard looks shocked, outraged and then frustrated.
“Magic isn’t real, Penny,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
Penny looks over his shoulder and catches Sheldon’s careful consideration of her, his whole body still, the way he gets when he’s working on a theory.
A week later Sheldon knocks on her door and gives her a book.
“This better not be another four hundred hundred pages on the dangers of asparagus mould,” she says, frowning at the cover.
Sheldon looks down his nose at her, and it’s an indication of how much time she spends with him that she actually finds it endearing. He also doesn’t bother to correct her mispronunciation of Aspergillus. Progress.
“It’s about Clarke’s Three Laws,” he says, hands gripping the strap of his bag. “I thought you might find it interesting.
Penny sighs as she turns it over. She never knows whether to be offended or flattered when the boys try to educate her. Her breath catches as she reads the blurb.
“Oh,” she says, looking up at him. “This is-”
“You were talking about it the other day,” he says, cutting her off, and looking down as if suddenly fascinated by his shoes. “You paraphrased the third law, that: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ So. I thought you might be interested.”
It’s awkward. He still won’t make eye contact and she’s a little overwhelmed. It’s such a thoughtful gesture she doesn’t know quite what to do with it.
“Thank you,” she says, quietly. “You realise I’m going to have to hug you now.”
He actually relaxes a little at that. Rolls his eyes and refuses to loosen up or return the embrace as she wraps her arms around him, careful to keep the book from digging into his spine.
“It’s Thai night,” he says, when she pulls back.
“Yeah,” she says. “I want green curry with chicken and extra rice.”
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She slips in the shower and dislocates her shoulder. It hurts. A lot. She considers calling for Paige. But then Sheldon is there. Awkward and almost deliberately ineffective.
“Get your hand off my breast,” she says, “and drive me to the hospital.”
He manages to get her dressed without any additional bad touching and then they embark on the slowest road trip of her life.
“Make them give me the good drugs,” she tells Sheldon, gritting her teeth. “Or so help me I will rip off this arm and beat you to death with it.”
“Interesting,” says Sheldon, hands positioned at ten and two, leaning so far forward his chin is almost resting on the wheel. “My previous reading on the subject of pain has revealed nothing regarding a link between physical injury and increased levels of violent tendencies.”
“Sheldon,” she says, injecting enough rage in to her tone that he actual goes silent and increases his driving speed very slightly.
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Leonard says, “I love you.”
She opens her mouth, but the words won’t come. You don’t even know me, she thinks. I don’t even know myself.
“Thank you,” she says instead, and it’s not enough.
Nowhere near enough.
They break-up. She doesn’t cry in the bath tub. Instead Bernadette makes her watch Love Actually, You’ve Got Mail and The Proposal, and insists that she consume three pints of Ben and Jerry’s.
“This how healthy people do break ups,” she tells Penny.
Penny feels sick, but Ryan Reynolds is shirtless on her tv, so it could be worse.
“I’m not going to cry,” she says.
“Why would you? You weren’t in love with him,” says Bernadette, which is harsh but fair.
Penny feels sad, and then feels guilty about not feeling worse.
“Emotions are hard,” she tells Bernadette.
They’re trying decide between Two Weeks Notice and Must Love Dogs, when there’s a series of rapid knocks on the door.
“Ignore it,” says Bernadette.
“It’s Sheldon,” says Penny, “he’s an immovable object.”
Penny wonders if it’s possible to get drunk off rum ice cream. She feels very strange.
“Penny,” says Sheldon, when she opens the door, like they’re in the middle of a conversation. “I still want to be friends.”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
She can’t believe that this is what’s making her tear up. Sheldon looks terrified and under any other circumstance it would be hilarious.
“We’re friends,” she says, blinking rapidly and willing the tears to disappear. “So come in and watch movies with us. We have ice cream.”
She’s actually not sure if they have any more ice cream, but she pulls Sheldon into the apartment and closes the door behind him anyway. She sits cross legged in the middle of the sofa, with Sheldon on one side and Bernadette on the other. They watch Must Love Dogs, and Sheldon spends the whole time theorising on the correlation between dog ownership and success in heteronormative relationships, while Bernadette levels increasingly hyperbolic threats at his person. Penny listens to them bicker and watches as the impossibly beautiful Diane Lane and the inexplicably attractive John Cusack fall in love.
As far as break-ups go, it’s actually pretty great.
In the morning she wakes up in her own bed, sandwiched between Paige and Phoebe.
“Who the hell let you two in?”
“Oh, please,” says Phoebe, smiling like this is all totally normal. “Like we need help breaking in.”
“Sad, but true,” says Paige, from somewhere behind her. “We are really great at crime.”
Penny laughs and then maybe sheds a few tears and there’s lots of hugging.
Afterwards Phoebe wants to make pancakes.
“Since I’m guessing we all want to actually survive breakfast,” says Paige, wrinkling her nose, “how about I make them?”
Her hair is blond now, with dark tips. She looks relaxed and Penny thinks that Piper was probably right, when she said her and Henry were back together again.
“Fine,” says Phoebe, who ought to be used to comments about her lack of culinary skills by now. “Kind of a moot point, any way, since all I can only find cereal, milk, and ten pints of alcohol infused ice cream.”
Penny pulls a face, which hopefully conveys her distress. Even the though of ice cream is making her feel nauseous.
“I can text Sheldon,” she says. “It’s Sunday, he has the ingredients and he has a thing about food chemistry. He’ll totally make them for us so that we don’t ruin the chemical integrity of the perfect pancake. Or something.”
“Awesome,” says Paige. “Tell him to bring over the SGA boxset as well. I need a sci-fi fix.”
Phoebe is giving her a look, eyes slightly unfocused. It’s her psychoanalysing expression. Penny hates it.
“Stop that,” she says, leaving the room to retrieve her phone from her bedside table.
Friend request, she texts to Sheldon, bring pancake ingredients.
She hits send and then adds: also bring pancake pan.
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She takes Sheldon to Disneyland. They have the time of their lives. Mainly because Penny stops him outside the park and sets out a few ground rules.
“Right,” she says, making it clear that everything she’s about to say will be non-negotiable, “here’s how this is going to go. You will not discuss any statistics related to death or injury. You will not hypothesise about the relative safety or scientific integrity of any of the rides. You absolutely will not talk about the hygiene standards of individual people, public places, or anything edible. Also, I don’t want to hear anything about my appearance before, during, or after anything we do.”
She pauses, making sure he is listening to every word. He nods, only looking slightly irritated, which is basically his resting face.
“In return,” she says, feeling recklessly optimistic, “I will listen to you talk about anything else.”
“That seems fair,” says Sheldon.
He’s been far more agreeable to her rules and suggestions since she broke up with Leonard. Like he’s making an effort to be nice to her. She appreciates it.
Everything goes awesomely, up until Space Mountain, when he throws up two corn dogs and more cotton candy than she had watched him ingest.
“Whoops,” she says, rubbing his back and keeping her feet clear. “Let’s get you some water.”
Back at the apartment she tucks him into bed, lips twitching when he falls asleep immediately, and turns to find Leonard watching her.
“He threw up, huh?”
“Yeah,” she says, “it was impressively gross.”
“We’re still friends,” he says, addressing her knees, “right?”
“That’s up to you,” she says, not unkindly. “We’re only going to have a problem if you tell our friends that they can’t hang out with both of us.”
“To be fair,” says Leonard, pushing his glasses up his nose, “that was mostly Raj and Howard.”
Penny does not roll her eyes, but she really, really wants to.
“Goodnight, Leonard,” she says as she leaves, kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll see you on Halo night.”
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“Piper,” she says, quiet and reluctant, lying on her bed, phone held next to her ear. “Did-Did you bury her?”
Piper fumbles with something on the other end of the line. Penny has never asked before.
“Penny,” she says, breathless, “of course. Of course we did.”
“Is it somewhere nice?”
Her voice cracks, and she doesn’t want to cry. Not over the phone. Not ever.
“We put her next to Prue,” says Piper, and Penny sometimes forgets that Piper lost a sister too.
“Thank you,” she says, pushing her hand against her eyes like she can force the tears back.
Piper doesn’t say anything, but she stays on the line until Penny falls asleep.
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Sheldon is hanging out on the stairwell when she gets home from a double shift, headphones around his neck and laptop balanced on his knees.
“Leonard having sex again?”
You can put that on her list of things that she never expected to ask.
“At least he extended the courtesy of a text this time,” says Sheldon, and he sounds genuinely annoyed.
“You want to grab something for dinner?”
He looks up at her, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He closes his laptop and rises.
“Yes,” he says, “I want dumplings.”
“Sure,” she says, weary in a way she can’t disguise.
Sheldon follows her up to her apartment and waits on her sofa while she showers and changes. She wipes the steam from the mirror. She doesn’t look as broken as she feels, but there are shadows under her eyes.
“Let’s go,” she says, grabbing her jacket, wallet and keys.
They get dumplings and egg rolls. Penny doesn’t double dip and Sheldon doesn’t comment on her use of a fork. Afterwards she drives them up to one of the quieter lookouts, outside the city.
“I don’t want to go home,” she says, not sure if she means her apartment, or his, or the Halliwell house.
This is the point where Sheldon would normally batter her with logic. He had kept up a steady stream of chatter while she was driving, not even noticing when she took several wrong turns and a long detour. Something about the Hadron Collider and the end of all things. She was kind of listening.
“You’re upset,” says Sheldon, surprising her.
He sounds uncertain. She flexes her fingers on the steering wheel. It’s dark outside, but city-dark, light pollution casting a soft amber glow over everything.
“Yeah,” she tells him, because she can’t think of anything else to say.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She leans back in her seat and looks over at him in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, Sheldon,” she says, attempting to smile. “I’m not going to talk about my feelings.”
She closes her eyes, resisting the compulsion to throw out her arm to still Sheldon when he fidgets beside her.
“I can listen,” he says, after a few moments. “If it will help.”
He means it, she knows, and she is so very tired of feeling alone.
"I lost someone," Penny says, opening her eyes and staring straight ahead. "My sister. It still hurts. Some days are harder than others. That’s all.”
"I'm not good at this," says Sheldon awkwardly.
"I know," she says, turning her head to look at him. "I'm not expecting anything."
He makes a noise, frowning at her like she's one of his more problematic equations.
"You don't understand," he says, sounding frustrated. "When I'm with you… I wish that I could be."
She looks away, her mouth suddenly dry. Sheldon is tense beside her, almost vibrating, fingers of his right hand twisting in his shirt.
"That's enough," she says, the back of her hand brushing against his, where he’s holding on to the edge of his seat. "More than enough.”
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She wakes up one morning and almost dislocates her other shoulder when she finds Wyatt attempting to climb up her kitchen cabinets and has to lunge to catch him after he slips. Chris is sitting on her sofa, chewing on his fist and trying to make her TV work.
“What are you doing?”
“Chris is hungry,” says Wyatt, and he’s actually kind of heavy now, so she puts him down and rubs her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you just-?”
Penny waves her hands in the Halliwell approved gesture for orbing. Wyatt tugs at her shirt looking serious.
“Mum says you don’t like magic any more,” he says. “I didn’t want to make you sad.”
Penny doesn’t know what to say to that, so she prepares three bowls of cereal and sets up the TV for them. She finds a cartoon about a boy who turns into a girl with super powers. Phoebe would love the subtext.
“Does your mum know where you are?”
Wyatt concentrates on his breakfast, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“It’s fine,” he says, “don’t call her.”
“Uh huh,” says Penny, grabbing her mobile.
She texts Sheldon: need favour. my place now.
He actually comes over straight away.
“Penny,” he says, in that tone that means he’s about to lecture her, “we really need to talk about your syntax.”
“No,” she says, “we don’t. I need you to watch the boys for five minutes.”
Wyatt and Sheldon look at each other, Chris is now wearing some of his cereal and waving at the screen, saying something that sounds like ‘kapow’.
“I like your shirt,” says Wyatt. “The Flash is pretty cool. But Spider-man is my favourite.”
Sheldon opens his mouth and Penny figures they’ll be fine.
“Okay,” she says quickly, before either of them can build up momentum. “I’ll leave you to it. No sugar for anyone. And Wyatt. Best, normal, behaviour please.”
She closes the door takes a deep breath and tells herself that everything is going to be fine. Leonard is staring at her from across the hall.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she says, suddenly guilty that she hadn’t texted him, even though they’re not together anymore. “I mean, just regular stuff.”
“Right,” he says, drawing the word out. “You need a lift somewhere?”
“Nope,” she says, “I’m good.”
She thinks about asking him for his phone, but Wyatt is smart. If there’s a spell, and there’s definitely a spell, he probably cast it over the entire block. She waves goodbye to Leonard and then jogs two blocks to the nearest pay phone. She realises belatedly that she needs money and breathes a sigh of relief when she finds a couple of quarters in her pocket.
Leo answers the phone.
“This isn’t the best time,” he says, sounding distracted, “can we call you back?”
“Looking for your sons, by any chance?”
“Penny?”
“Yes,” she says, “don’t worry, they’re here with me.”
Leo doesn’t have time to reply, there a plastic sounding tapping noise and then Piper is on the line.
“You tell them to get home right now,” she says, sounding furious and a little bit distraught.
“Umm,” says Penny, “you have met your children, right? I’m pretty sure I can’t make them do anything.”
“We can’t orb,” says Piper, voice strained. “We can’t even leave the house. And Paige can’t get in. Can’t even trace them.”
“What happened?”
Piper sighs.
“Misunderstanding,” she says, which must be the understatement of the century. “We told Wyatt that Chris couldn’t go with him to school, and he seemed to think that meant we were going to separate them forever.”
Penny chews her bottom lip and tries to keep the handset from touching any part of her face.
“Give me twenty-four hours,” she says. “They’re safe with me.”
“Okay,” says Piper, breathing as if pained. “I trust you.”
“I won’t let you you down,” says Penny, feeling young and vulnerable in a way she hasn’t for years.
“I know,” says Piper.
Her apartment is empty when she gets back. The bowls are clean in the dish rack, and her sofa is free of any milk stains.
“Five minutes,” she mutters. “I was gone for five minutes.”
Then she thinks about it and realises that she’s being an idiot. She walks across the hallway. They’re all sitting on the sofa in Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment, watching the Animated Adventures of Spider-man.
“Pen,” says Chris as she walks in, completely distracting her from her justifiable rage.
The manipulative little-
“I taught him that,” says Wyatt, grinning at her, arms wrapped around his little brother.
She takes it back. They’re both manipulative little shits.
“I called in sick for work,” says Sheldon, like it’s no big deal. “I didn’t know how long you would require assistance for, and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to contribute to the development of Wyatt’s appreciation for comic books and cartoons. He is at a critical age, Penny.”
“Sure,” she says, thinking about how Piper would deal with this.
Probably with yelling and small to medium explosions.
She chooses the path of least resistance, sitting on the other side of Wyatt, and lets Chris crawl into her lap. Turns out the Animated Adventures of Spider-man are pretty awesome.
Later, when Sheldon is ordering some takeout for them all, Penny hugs Wyatt against her side. Chris is asleep, drooling into her shoulder.
“Hey kiddo,” she says, “you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Wyatt, sniffs and curls into her.
“Mama doesn’t get it,” he says, “it’s my job to look after Chris. He’s just a baby. He can barely even orb.”
Penny sighs and pulls him up onto her lap. It’s crowded with Chris there as well, but Wyatt doesn’t seem to mind.
“You are the best big brother, ever,” she tells him. “But you need to learn to trust people.”
Wyatt looks up at her, his eyes wide and very young. She had been afraid of him once, she remembers.
“You need to trust that your ma and da, and your aunts and uncles, will protect you and your brother,” she says, eyes stinging slightly. “And one day you’re going to need to trust Chris to look after himself.”
Wyatt looks at his brother and rests his head on her shoulder.
“Can we stay here for a little while more,” he says quietly. “We missed you, Aunty Penny.”
Penny blinks rapidly and swallows down the hot feeling of sadness gathering in her chest.
“You can stay for the night,” she says, “and then you have to go home.”
“Okay,” says Wyatt. “It’s a deal.”
She realises the rest of the apartment has gone quiet and when she looks up Sheldon is watching them from the kitchen. She can’t read the expression on his face.
The next morning Piper and Leo orb into her living room. She doesn’t make a fuss, mainly because she’s still half asleep, Chris tucked between her and Wyatt.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” says Piper, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Ugh,” says Penny, “I need coffee. And more coffee.”
“Mum,” says Wyatt, apparently over his trauma and one hundred percent awake. “We watched cartoons with Penny’s friend and he gave me comics and later we played Xbox games with Penny’s other friends and we ate pizza and I think we should really get an Xbox.”
Piper doesn’t roll her eyes or make anything explode. Penny breathes out a sigh of relief.
“How about we have a conversation about how you locked your parents in the house first?”
Wyatt throws his arms around Piper’s neck and kisses her cheek.
“Sorry,” he says, very seriously. “The important thing is that everyone is okay and we all learned a valuable lesson.” There’s a moment of silence and then he adds, “and we found out about how good Xboxes are.”
“There we go,” says Piper, looking at Leo, over Wyatt’s head. “I blame you for this.”
Leo looks genuinely contrite, which is probably why their marriage works. He’s also holding a mug of coffee making him Penny’s favourite person in the world. She shuffles out of bed, absentmindedly picking Chris up and balancing him on her left hip, leaving her right hand free for the coffee. Leo hands it over. They all stay for breakfast and then thoughtfully leave the apartment before orbing home. She hugs them goodbye, feeling strangely bereft.
“Thank you,” says Piper, her embrace fierce and warm, before she pulls back. “You know, you can come home, anytime? To visit, or stay. Whatever you want. Whenever you’re ready.”
“I know,” says Penny, but she still hasn’t figured out what she’s waiting for.
_________________
Raj and Howard create a fake dating profile for Sheldon, and find him the perfect match. Amy Farrah-Fowler is like Sheldon 2.0. All the intelligence, rationality, and social awkwardness, with the delightful addition of a secret passion for the kind of pretty things Penny loves. They don’t become immediate friends, but between her and Bernadette, they manage to draw Amy out. They have girl’s nights in and girl’s nights out and Penny realises that she barely sees her old friends any more.
“Why do you want to be an actress?”
Amy has her scientist face on and Penny knows there is absolutely nothing she can say that will satisfy her.
“I thought I would be good at it,” she says, honestly.
“Are you?”
“Amy,” says Bernadette, pouting and trying to stroke Amy’s hair, and boy, she is a total lightweight. “Be nice.”
Penny laughs and catches Bernadette before she falls on her face. They’re sitting on her sofa. Amy’s cheeks are flushed, but she holds her liquor better than Bernadette. In the background Nicolas Cage is talking about the declaration of independence, which means they should all take another drink, but they are tipsy enough already so Penny lets it slide.
“Nope,” she says, and it doesn’t hurt as badly as she thought it would, admitting it. “I’m really not that good at all.”
“You should do something else,” says Amy, forthright and earnest. “You are not a scientist Penny, but you are brilliant in your own way. You deserve nothing less than to be your absolute best.”
Penny feels lightheaded and her eyes sting. Bernadette, who’s sitting in between them pulls them both into a hug.
“Ladies are the awesomest,” she says, words slightly slurred.
“Yes we are,” says Amy, arm strong across Penny’s back.
Penny hugs them back, feels young, and forgets for a moment about a little girl who grew up in the shadow of her missing sister.
_________________
Leonard is totally in love with Raj’s sister, Priya, and Penny is genuinely happy for them. And not just because she no longer has to feel guilty that it didn’t work out between them. Raj is not quite as pleased, but luckily Penny doesn’t have to deal with that, because he still can’t talk to her without copious amount of liquor.
Meanwhile Amy and Sheldon are negotiating the most thoroughly scientific relationship on earth. It makes Penny feel uncomfortable, which irritates her, because she’s never been the judgmental type. It doesn’t help that Amy and Sheldon keep asking her for advice. Penny is not in a position to offer dating assistance to anyone. Penny is moving from one casual fling to the next when things are going well, and making really terrible decisions about dating when things are not. She tries her best though. Helps Sheldon shop for presents for Amy. Asks Amy to be patient with Sheldon, when he shies away from any physical intimacy.
Amy’s words about her career are like splinters under her skin. She stops going to auditions and fires her extremely dodgy agent. She uses her new free time to pick up extra shifts at The Cheesecake Factory and to go through her old notebooks. She reads through the stories she wrote as a child. They’re not great, but they’re not awful either. She goes out and buys herself a pack of cheap A4 notepads and a bag of ball point pens. When she gets home she brews some tea, sits on her sofa and starts writing.
Once she has some momentum it’s difficult to stop. By the end of the month she has five short stories, three novel ideas, and drafts for two children’s books. She picks her favourite one, a story for young readers, The Three Witches. She types it up on her laptop. Edits it. Sleeps on it. Edits it again. And then ignores it for a fortnight.
She should talk to Phoebe, who knows things about the industry, but she wants to do this by herself, as much as she can. Eventually she goes to Sheldon, who, she is forced to acknowledge, has become her best friend.
“So,” she says, after making him hot dog spaghetti. “I need your help.”
Sheldon smiles and then actually lets her explain what she wants help with before making any assumptions, which is nice, but not all that unusual these days.
“I want to be a writer,” she says, tapping her fork against her plate, feeling nervous. “But I’m not really sure what to do.”
Sheldon chews, looks thoughtful.
“I can do the research,” he says, “but you should do all the things that require talking to people.”
“Yes,” she says, smiling. “Playing to our strengths.”
She salutes him with her fork, and he actually clinks his own fork against hers, making her laugh.
“Is this a secret?”
Penny pokes at her pasta.
“Not really,” she says, carefully, “I just don’t want anyone else to know. Not yet.”
Sheldon nods and then tries to explain the uncertainty principle to her. Fifth time lucky, she thinks, maybe this time it will stick. She gets distracted though; watching his hands move like a conductors, strangely graceful.
_________________
On a Thursday morning Penny wakes up and decides she doesn’t want to work as a waitress anymore. She calls Paige, who doesn’t pickup. Less than five minutes later there’s a knock at her door.
“Why can’t you just answer your phone like a normal person?”
“Because I’m not a normal person,” says Paige, wrapping her arms around Penny, all enthusiasm and joy.
Her hair is multi-coloured, like a rainbow. It looks insane.
“Is this a pride thing?”
Paige looks confused, and then embarrassed when Penny gestures at her hair.
“Ah,” she says, “that. That was an accident.”
“Okay,” says Penny, because she doesn’t want to know.
They go out for coffee and everyone stares at them. Paige flicks her hair, winks at anyone who dares to make eye contact.
“You have no shame,” says Penny, as they sit down at a corner table, unable to disguise her admiration.
“Damn straight,” says Paige, leaning back and smiling wide.
Penny asks Paige about work.
“I want to help people,” she says, fingers wrapped around her paper cup. “I can’t afford to volunteer, and I don’t have any qualifications. I’d like something casual. Or part-time. So. Any ideas?”
Paige makes some calls, pops off to the ‘bathroom’ and by the time they’ve finished their coffee she has a list of names and numbers for Penny to call.
They walk back to Penny’s apartment. Paige pulls her into a goodbye embrace next to the mailboxes.
“Maybe next time you can visit us?”
Penny swallows, holds Paige tighter.
“Maybe,” she says, and she thinks she might almost be ready.
_________________
"I kissed Amy," Sheldon tells her early one morning.
She blinks slowly, and resists the impulse to rub her eyes like a child. He seems almost alien standing awkwardly in the middle of her apartment, skin pale underneath the halogen bulbs he had made her install.
"It's two in the morning, Sheldon," she says.
He clenches his jaw, lips pressed into a thin line. Her neck hurts from looking up at him so she sighs, and makes him sit on the sofa. Makes herself comfortable facing him, one leg folded under her, and the other hanging off the side of the sofa, foot resting on the floor.
"What's wrong?"
Sheldon looks forward, eyes dark and unfocused.
"I don't," he says, uncharacteristically uncertain. "I didn't want to."
"Okay," she says, tone soothing, and chest suddenly tight. "It's alright. You don't have to do anything you don't want.”
She curls her hands into loose fists and rests them on her knees instead of reaching out to touch him. He makes a small, distressed noise.
"I-I don't think I can be the person Amy wants me to be," he says.
Penny swallows, tries to breathe around the lump in her throat.
"Amy's your friend, Sheldon," she says carefully. ”She would never intentionally hurt you. You know that. You need to talk to her. Tell her what you've just told me."
She's not sure that he's heard her.
"I'm not sure I want to be the person that she wants me to be," he says, quietly.
Penny reaches for his hand before she can stop herself, her fingers curling gently around his. He doesn't flinch but his attention shifts to their hands. He turns his head, and looks at her properly for the first time that night.
"The thing is," he says in a rush of words, " when I was with Amy, I was thinking of how it didn't feel right. Then I was thinking about the places I feel safe. Places I like. I was thinking that I feel safe when I'm here. I was thinking that I feel like myself when I'm with you."
Penny tightens her grip on his fingers, her mouth falling open slightly. It's a declaration. There's a painful twist under her ribcage. She can see confusion in the way he looks at her, but no fear. No intent.
Sheldon looks at her without expectation. Without judgement.
He looks at her with complete trust.
"Okay," she says, voice cracking slightly. "Okay."
She's not sure quite what she means.
"I'm tired," she says, "and you're tired. So we're going to sleep and in the morning you will talk to Amy and everything will be okay."
He nods, but he doesn't move away, just leans back against her brightly coloured lounge. Her fingers are still tangled in his.
They fall asleep like that, next to each other. Their hands a single point of contact.
For the first time in years Penny doesn't dream at all.
_________________
Things don't really change. Wednesday's are still Halo nights. Sheldon still talks to Amy in person and on Skype. Penny still has girl time with her and Bernadette, and she doesn't know what Sheldon said, but Amy never brings it up and never treats Penny any differently.
Sheldon tells people that Amy is his friend who is a girl, and Amy tells everyone that she is single. There are no more awkward attempts at physical affection between them.
Sheldon visits her more often now. Sits on her lounge and talks about quantum mechanics, string theory and comic book canon. Complains about his work at the university. Listens when she talks about her new job at the shelter, her attempts to follow up on her submission to publishers and the random things that catch her interest.
She stops dating. Stays in a little more. Drinks a little less. Bernadette brings it up, after a month or so.
"What's up with you, Hun?"
"Huh?" says Penny, trying to figure out if she has enough spare change for a coffee and muffin.
"You haven't been going out as much. And you haven't been on a date in forever," Bernadette says. "Should I be worried?"
Penny counts her coins and thinks about how Sheldon had watched her the day before, quiet and focused as she told him about her latest story idea.
"I'm figuring some things out," she says, and ends up giving the muffin to Bernadette.
On nights at Leonard and Sheldon's she sits a little further to left. Close enough to almost brush against Sheldon every time one of them moves. Nobody notices.
Sometimes, when they're doing laundry together, they don't even talk, but Sheldon will stand beside her, their arms pressing together as they fold their clothes.
Her dreams are quieter these days. Blue skies, bright colours and the sound of distant knocking.
_________________
Phoebe gets married.
"You're coming to the wedding," she tells Penny, over the phone. "It's family only, and you're family."
Penny takes a breath. She hasn't been back to San Francisco since she packed up her belongings in beat up boxes. Since she changed her name.
"Okay," she says. "Should I bring anything?"
"Just your beautiful self," says Phoebe. "Oh, and a plus one, if you want. It's going to be a magic free event."
"Sure," says Penny, feeling numb.
It’s been a while since she’s heard the 'm' word, but Phoebe’s good at knowing which lines she can cross.
"I can hear your scepticism, missy," says Phoebe. "But I am one hundred percent serious. I wrote a spell. It's happening."
Penny laughs at the irony and something loosens in her chest.
Sheldon comes over and she makes them both hot chocolates. They sit on the lounge, legs touching.
"My cousin is getting married," she says, mug cradled in her hands.
Sheldon frowns, it's a look of concentration. Like he knows that what she's saying is important, but doesn't know why.
"It's in San-Francisco," she tells him. "Do you-Would like to come as my plus one?"
She hasn't felt this awkward since asking Chad Williams to prom.
"This is important to you," says Sheldon, looking from her hands to her face.
"Yes," she says, "but you don't have to come with me if you don't want to. I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with."
She realises she's talking about more than the wedding.
"I'll go," says Sheldon. "I'm generally not considered good company at these kind of events, but this matters to you. So I will, ‘give it my best’. You may have to provide me with some assistance.”
"Okay," she says, and she's smiling.
_________________
The Halliwell house is covered in flowers and fairy lights, inside and out.
“Oh em gee,” says Penny, when she walks in and sees Phoebe, barely registering the click of a photo being taken. “Is this a shotgun wedding?”
Phoebe laughs, pulls her into an awkward hug on account of the fact that she is extremely pregnant.
“When have I ever done things the conventional way?”
She looks radiantly happy and ridiculously beautiful. Coop is hovering behind her, arms half extended like he’s expecting her to topple over at any moment.
“How could you not tell me about this?”
Phoebe raises an eyebrow and looks over at Paige and Piper, who are crowded around a polaroid camera. Penny scowls.
“Hey,” says Paige, “I’ve been waiting for months to see you make that face. No way was I going to miss an opportunity to immortalise it.”
Piper looks smug, head tilted to one side.
“This is what happens when you don’t come home for years,” she says.
The wedding is beautiful. Phoebe looks like a greek goddess, in flowing robes of pale gold and white flowers in her hair. Coop looks handsome and like he can hardly believe his good fortune. Everyone is smiling and nobody dies.
“I was kind of expecting one Phoebe’s ex-lovers to appear and curse us all,” says Paige, in a stage whisper as they’re sitting down to eat.
Penny elbows her, watching Sheldon try and process that sentence.
“Haha,” she says, “Paige, you joker. Curses are totally not a thing that happen to anyone. Ever.”
Sheldon clears his throat.
“I find it odd that you would believe in psychics and not curses,” he says, choosing the worst possible time to be tactful and considerate.
“Yeah, Penny,” says Paige, “stop being so damn irrational.”
“This is why I moved to L.A.,” Penny tells everyone at the table.
Nobody looks at all sympathetic or upset.
“Lies,” says Paige, dramatically, “you love us.”
Chris keeps trying to climb up onto her lap, and Penny wants to be irritated but she really does love them all.
She and Sheldon sleep in the boy’s room; Wyatt and Chris are in with their parents. Piper has made up two single air beds. Penny gets the feeling that Phoebe had been the one to suggest that. By the time she gets upstairs though, Sheldon has pushed them both together and is lying on his back, eyes open and on the ceiling.
“I don’t recognise this constellation,” he says.
Penny looks up and thinks uncharitable thoughts about young witches with too much power. There’s an incredible detailed solar system ‘painted’ on the ceiling. It glows slightly, like a real night sky.
“Yeah,” she says, fumbling for a half truth. “I doubt it’s meant to be a replica.”
She gets ready for bed in the bathroom. Thinks about Sheldon moving their beds so that they can sleep close together. Studies her reflection and wonders if this is what happiness looks like.
She heads back to the bedroom and makes herself comfortable on the mattress closest to the door, moving the extra blanket down towards her feet, because she hates waking up overheated.
“Your family is strange,” says Sheldon, which is true, but also a little hilarious coming from a person whose mother believes that the world is only 6,000 years old. “I like them though.”
And then he reaches over and laces their fingers together and falls asleep.
Penny lies on her back and looks up into an unfamiliar night sky and rubs her thumb gently against Sheldon’s knuckles, trying to will her heart to beat a little slower.
She falls asleep to the sound of his breathing and the feel of his hand curled around her own.
_________________
The call comes at 10am in the morning, several weeks after the wedding, just as she’s about to leave for a shift.
“Ms Halliwell,” says the voice on the phone, “do you have a moment to talk?”
Penny sits down, looks at the number again, and shrugs.
“Sure,” she says. “Unless this is a marketing thing, in which case, I am so not interested.”
“I’m calling on behalf of Zenith Publishing House,” says the voice, sounding amused and possibly female. “We received your manuscript and would like to talk to you about collaborating with an illustrator as we believe your book is perfect for publication.”
Penny feels numb.
“Yes,” she says, on autopilot, “I would love that. Just tell me what I need to do.”
Her hands are trembling by the time she hangs up. She means to get up and go to work but instead she calls Sheldon.
“Penny,” he says, “if you are calling from the car, you are being reckless, and if you are calling from home, then you are going to be late.”
“Hey,” she says, “I could totally be calling from outside work.”
“Then you would be early, which is statistically unlikely,” he says.
“I can’t remember why I like you,” she lies.
“That is statistically more likely,” he says, sounding a little hurt.
“Sheldon,” she says, “I just got a call from a publisher. They want me to work with an illustrator. They want to print my book.”
There’s silence and then some background rustling.
“Penny,” he says, a moment later, “I believe that the proper procedure in these situations is to ‘ditch’ work and celebrate. If you would be kind enough to pick me up I would be more than happy to arrange food and entertainment.”
“Ah,” says Penny, smiling, feeling returning to her fingers and toes, “now I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Why I like you,” she says. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
_________________
One, unremarkable day, she tells Sheldon. Makes him sit on the lounge. Settles opposite him, on the edge of the coffee table.
"I'm-I can do magic," she says, voice a little unsteady.
"Are you about to pull a quarter out from behind my ear?"
Sheldon looks worried and maybe a little annoyed. She laughs. Buries her head in her hands and tries not to cry. After a few minutes Sheldon awkwardly pats her head.
“I realise that I may have expressed myself in a way that was not completely supportive,” he says, careful in a way that he never would have been when they first met.
It grounds her.
She looks up at him and bites her bottom lip.
“Not quite,” she says, and then calls the mug on the kitchen counter to her hand.
Sheldon’s eyes go very wide and he looks from the kitchen to her hand several times in quick succession. She lets him take the mug and turn it over in his hands.
“How?”
“Telekinesis,” she says, trying to sound casual about it as she makes a book move from the shelf to the sofa.
Sheldon looks a little dazed, but it’s his thinking look. The one he gets when he’s confronted with new, unexpected data.
“I have some questions,” he says, a few minutes later.
“Of course you do,” she says, feeling fond and relieved and a dozen other things.
He asks her to move almost everything in her apartment. Questions her about spells and her ‘cousins’. Nothing mean or skeptical in his queries. Just endless amounts of curiosity.
“Can you do anything else?”
It’s hours later, and her voice has gone a little hoarse from talking. They’re both sitting on the lounge now, facing each other, knees touching. She taps her finger on his leg, a nervous habit she’s picked up when they’re alone, now that he doesn’t mind her touching him.
“Just one thing,” she says. “But I-I don’t use it anymore. I actually don’t do magic at all. Today is the first time in years I’ve used any power.”
He places his hand over hers, pressing it into his leg.
“My sister,” she says, voice cracked and painful. “Christy. We both had a unique gift. Mine was, um, projection. Which doesn’t sound all that impressive, but, uh, it means I can basically bend reality and time itself.”
She lets out a shaky, slightly hysterical laugh. Sheldon is quiet. She’s pretty sure he’s attempting to translate everything she’s saying into algorithms and equations.
“It’s a terrifying amount of power. So I don’t. I don’t do that anymore.”
One day she’ll tell him about this part properly. Share the story of a little girl called Billie, who learnt that nightmares and monsters were real. A girl who stood on the brink of an apocalypse and looked back. A girl who ripped apart time and space. A girl who lost, found, and then killed her sister.
“Do you want me to stay here tonight?”
The question catches her off guard.
“What?”
“You’re upset,” Sheldon says, carefully examining her face and her hands, collecting data. “I could stay. If that would help?”
“Yes,” she says, biting down on her tongue to stop anything else from coming out of her mouth.
They don’t do this. Sleep together. With the exception of that weekend at Phoebe’s wedding. All their touches are quiet. Innocent. It makes her feel, well, a lot of things. She doesn’t mind the waiting. Can accept that this might be all they ever have. But she’s still missed the warmth of having someone in her bed. Not for sex. She can handle that herself, when she wants it. It’s the company she craves.
“Okay,” he says, and she curls her fingers around his and breathes easily when she can’t find a trace of discomfort or fear in his expression or posture.
He leaves and comes back with a pair of pyjamas. She has no idea whether Leonard is home. What Sheldon might have said if he was. She doesn’t care. She changes in the bathroom, and he’s laying on his back, underneath the covers when she comes out. He’s settled on the right. She crawls into bed and curls up on her side. Forehead resting against his shoulder, knees brushing against his thighs.
“Is this okay?”
He reaches for her left hand, pulls it forward so that it rests over his heart, and places his own hand over it.
“Yes,” he says, after clearing his throat. “This is good.”
When she dreams now, she dreams of inky skies, star dust, and Sheldon's genuine, almost smile.
_________________
Leonard comes over, before work one morning, looking distressed.
“Penny.” he says, “Sheldon just asked me if things are getting serious with Priya. He asked me if I was going to move out.”
She blinks at Leonard and then frowns at her cereal box, concentrating as she fills her bowl. It’s too early for one of Leonard’s existential crises.
“You guys do seem pretty serious,” she says, kindly not pointing out that he had woken her up for this nonsense.
She adds milk to her breakfast and grabs a spoon. When she looks up, Leonard’s expression is a hilarious mixture of outrage and panic.
“Penny,” he says, again. “Sheldon asked me if I was moving out, and he didn’t sound upset.”
Penny’s brain catches up, spoon halfway to her mouth.
“Oh,” she says, voice small.
Leonard runs a hand through his hair and then crosses his arms over his chest.
“I think he wants me to move out,” he says.
“Oh,” says Penny, and her heart is beating so painfully loud she’s surprised that Leonard doesn’t comment on it.
She calls Piper.
“Penny,” says Piper, her voice steady, “is everything okay?”
Penny never calls.
“Yes,” she says. “No. Maybe. I think?”
“Try again,” says Piper, and Penny can never picture her as the middle child; she’s so good at being the oldest sister. “With actual sentences.”
“I’m in love with Sheldon,” she says. “I think we’re going to live together. I think this might be forever.”
“You’re freaking out,” says Piper sensibly, “take some deep breaths and then we can talk.”
“You don’t sound surprised,” says Penny, trying and failing to make it less of accusation.
“Penny. You talk about him all the time. You bought him to Phoebe’s wedding. You looked happy.”
“Oh,” says Penny, suddenly feeling like an idiot. “Oh.”
“Exactly,” says Piper, and even though it’s an ‘I told you so’, Penny can’t stop smiling.
She lets herself into the boy’s apartment that afternoon. Sits on the couch while she waits for Sheldon to get home. She’s unable to settle, fiddling with the coasters, the cushions, and the remote. After ten minutes she moves to the kitchen and makes herself some herbal tea. She’s just removing the tea bag when Sheldon walks through the door. He’s alone.
“Hello, Penny,” he says, like it’s normal for her to be making tea in his kitchen.
To be fair, it kind of is.
“Sheldon,” she says, part greeting, part question.
He hooks his bag over his desk chair and then stands looking at her.
“Leonard came over this morning,” she says, watching him carefully. “He said that you asked whether he was thinking of moving out.”
Sheldon’s focuses on a point somewhere over her shoulder and clears his throat.
“Yes,” he said. “I have been studying their interactions. I believe that if their relationship remains on its current trajectory then cohabitation would be the optimal outcome.”
“Sheldon,” she says quietly, pleased when his attention comes back to her. “Are you actually talking about Leonard and Priya?”
“I am capable of discussing multiple theories simultaneously,” he says, tugging at the bottom of his shirt.
“Sheldon,” she says, putting her mug down and walking over to him, gently disentangling his fingers from his shirt and holding them loosely.
“Penny,” he says, echoing her, his gaze suddenly steady. “I thought that you could have Leonard’s room, if you want it. Although I would also be happy to share mine.”
She tightens her grip on his hands and stands on her tiptoes. She intends to kiss him on the cheek, but he surprises her by turning his head. It’s barely more than a brief press of lips but it makes her heart stutter, warmth curling through her chest.
“Yes,” she says, to everything. “Yes.”
_________________
It doesn’t happen immediately. It takes a few weeks of Leonard panicking, procrastinating and prevaricating before he actually asks Priya if she wants to live together. Takes even longer for them to find a place that they both like.
“So,” says Howard one night, eyes narrow as he looks at Sheldon “got any plans for a new roomie.”
Penny knows about the bet he and Raj have going, each certain that Sheldon is going to ask them.
“I have already made the necessary arrangements,” says Sheldon.
Leonard, Howard and Raj are speechless, mouths open and eyes wide. They’re so busy freaking out that they totally miss the smug little look that Sheldon gives her. Penny’s lips twitch and she winks.
“I expect you guys to help me move in,” she says, watching in the delight as their heads all swivel in her direction, perfectly synchronised. “Although, I don’t want any of you to even think about dismantling or reconstructing any of my furniture. Ikea is not rocket science, and it doesn’t need to be.”
“Wait,” says Raj faintly, so stunned that he forgets for an instant that she’s a girl, “what is going on?”
“Penny is moving in,” says Sheldon, reaching for the remote. “But as Agent Carter is about to start you’ll have to save all your, no doubt, puerile questions for later.”
Penny smiles wide, leans back and makes herself comfortable next to Sheldon. She loves this show. Peggy Carter is a total boss. Peggy Carter is Penny’s hero.
_________________
She doesn’t actually need their help when it comes time for her to move because Piper, Phoebe and Paige show up. They make Raj, Howard, and Leonard go shopping for snacks and beverages. They have a list and Penny is ninety-nine percent certain that at least two of the items on it don’t actually exist.
“So,” says Piper, rolling up her sleeves and giving Sheldon and Penny her patented no-nonsense look. “Are you going to make us do this the hard way, or can we speed up the process and get straight to the fun part where we hang out, eat junk food, and watch TV?”
Sheldon looks at her, ready to follow her lead. The sisters are careful to keep their expressions neutral. Penny thinks about dusty attics and old vellum. Penny Halliwell, she thinks, may not do magic, but she has no reason to fear it.
“Okay,” she says. “You can do it the easy way.”
“Thank fuck,” says Phoebe, pulling a spell from her pocket, and side stepping Piper’s attempt to flick her.
“Language,” says Piper, sounding like everyone’s mum.
Paige actually looks a little disappointed.
Five minutes later they’re sitting on the sofas in Sheldon and Penny’s apartment and arguing over what movie to watch. Well, Penny is fighting with Paige and Piper. Sheldon is talking to Phoebe, who looks far too happy and awake for someone with a two month old baby (Piper has plenty to say on this subject). He’s looking over her spells and asking whether they all have to rhyme.
“No,” Phoebe says, grinning. “Not really. But it’s so much more satisfying. Seriously, nothing beats defeating a big bad with a poorly rhyming pun.”
Sheldon looks slightly horrified, which is fair, because puns are always awful, and rhyming puns are basically a crime against humanity.
_________________
A few weeks later Leonard is idly looking through a pile Sheldon’s old notebooks when he pulls out a neatly bound stack of papers.
“What the hell is this?”
“Leonard,” says Sheldon, who had been distracted by something on his laptop. “I don’t recall giving you permission to look through my things.”
Penny notices something his tone, though. He looks almost uncomfortable as he puts the computer to one side and walks over to where Leonard is.
“Is this latin?”
Priya rolls her eyes and gets up from where her and Penny had been looking at paint chips. Penny suspects that Priya’s new obsession with home decor may have something to do with the way she keeps asking to see pictures of Phoebe’s baby daughter.
“Leave it alone,” says Priya, just as Sheldon reaches forward to snatch the papers from Leonard’s grasp.
“Why do you have a whole bunch of research about magic?”
Leonard sounds amused, but Sheldon is pale, papers against his chest. Penny doesn’t know how to categorise the mixture of nausea and warmth in her gut.
“Shut up, Leonard,” she says, voice hard. “Or I’ll tell everyone about what you said that time your mother came over.”
Leonard looks completely pissed off, which is fine, as far as Penny is concerned because he’s clearly not thinking about magic anymore. Sheldon picks at the edges of the booklet, before placing it carefully in the top drawer of his desk.
“Time to go home, I think,” says Priya, looking over at Penny and widening her eyes in frustration.
At least fifty percent of their attempts to socialise together end like this.
“Don’t forget your swatches,” says Penny, smiling because she genuinely likes Priya, and when it’s just the two of them everything is totally fine.
After they’ve eaten too much pizza and caught up with Agents of Shield, Penny hugs a cushion to her chest and pushes her toes into Sheldon’s thigh.
“So,” she says, “you don’t have to tell me about what was in that booklet. But you can if you want to.”
Sheldon drops his hand to her foot and rubs his thumb across the back of her toes. She leans into him slightly, head resting against his shoulder.
“Just some research I did on ‘magic’,” he says slowly, nostrils flaring.
He doesn’t like the word, and they’ve had numerous discussions about coining a more scientific term for it, although it hasn’t resulted in anything productive so far.
“I know you don’t use your abilities anymore, but I thought that you might want to, one day. So I put together an information packet for you on the local covens and suppliers. I had Paige double check everything to make sure all the data was correct.”
Penny turns her head and brings her right arm up, curling it loosely over his chest. She feels full, affection and heat nestled beneath her ribcage.
“I apologise if I overstepped a boundary,” he says, raising a hand to lightly touch her arm.
“You didn’t,” she says, feeling so happy that she falls into something like melancholy. “I’m just not ready.”
He strokes his fingers up and down her forearm.
“That’s okay,” he says, voice calm and even. “There’s no need to rush”
_________________
Her first book is published. Everyone she knows buys a copy. Phoebe buys five hundred and donates them to libraries. Penny occasionally drags Sheldon into a shop so that she can see copies of The Three Witches on the shelf with her own eyes. Sheldon is mostly good about this, unless it’s on a day when they’re meant to be at the comic store.
“I’ll get over it eventually,” she tells him, she’s already had a second manuscript accepted.
They’re holding hands, which is a thing that they do now.
Everything is fantastic.
“You wrote a story about us,” says Piper, sounding delighted. “Wyatt loves it. He keeps reading it to Chris.”
Penny laughs, and offers to sign her copy.
“You should,” says Piper, and Penny knows she’s walked straight into a trap. “Paige could pick you and Sheldon up this weekend. You could come over for dinner.”
Penny imagines what Sheldon will think of orbing. Realises that Paige will have to field a thousand and one questions about what she does and how she does. Sheldon will want to map everything out in numbers. She waits for the feeling of dread to follow, but it doesn’t.
“Okay,” she says, relieved that she can’t see Piper’s face. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
_________________
She comes home from her part-time job one day to find Leonard on the sofa. He looks like he’s having another emotional crisis.
“What is it this time?”
She’s busy putting her bag on the kitchen counter, so her back is to him when he asks:
“Are you and Sheldon dating?”
She pushes her bag to one side and makes her expression as bland as possible before turning to sit on one of the kitchen stools. Leonard is wringing his hands. Literally wringing them. Like a heroine in a Victorian novel.
“I live with Sheldon,” she says, because it is true.
“I went into your bedroom,” he says, which is typically creepy, and sometimes she really regrets not setting up stronger personal boundaries during those early days. “It doesn’t look like you sleep in there.”
She really wishes that Sheldon was here. And suddenly he is. Walking through the door, like magic. For a moment she’s worried that it actually is magic; that she’s summoned him. But Sheldon doesn’t look confused or irritated, which she imagines he would, had he been suddenly transported from CalTech to their apartment.
“Leonard,” he says, “if you were going to come over you could have saved Raj the trouble of giving me a lift home.”
“Are you dating Penny?”
Sheldon blinks and then looks at her. She raises her shoulders, in a minute shrug. They’ve never talked about what they are, or whether they should tell anyone. But she trusts him. Is happy for him to the draw lines wherever he likes. She doesn’t need anyone else’s validation. She, like Agent Carter, knows her own value.
“Sheldon,” says Leonard, sharp and loud, like a command.
“Penny and I are together,” says Sheldon. “And that is all I have to say.”
He nods at Leonard, offers a quick small smile to Penny, and then disappears into their bedroom.
“Why?”
Leonard sounds deeply betrayed.
“Don’t be a dick,” says Penny, slipping off the stool. “You can let yourself out. And don’t come back until you’ve decided to be an adult about this.”
She pauses at the bedroom door.
“Oh,” she says, “and say hi to Priya for us.”
Raj and Howard are actually really great about it.
“You both look happy,” says Raj, and it’s barely more than a whisper, but he’s sober and actually talking her, which is awesome.
“Thanks,” she says.
“Yeah,” says Howard, with exaggerated sadness, “I guess this means we really are never going to have sex.”
“We never were, Howard,” she says, patting his arm gently, “we never were.”
She beats them at Halo and then makes Sheldon prepare hot chocolate for everyone. Leonard sips his lactose free equivalent and sighs when Priya nudges him with her elbow.
“Are you happy?”
Sheldon is sitting next to her, remote in one hand, green lantern mug in the other. They’re going to watch Battlestar Galactica. Again. There are two marshmallows in her hot chocolate, both pink, because she likes them better than the white ones.
“Yes, Leonard” says Sheldon, condescending like he always is when he feels that people are failing to grasp the obvious. “I am very happy.”
“Yeah,” Penny says, smiling at Sheldon, and then at Priya, Leonard, Raj, and Howard. “Me too.”
_________________
“So,” says Piper, during their weekly call. “Do you think there’ll be a wedding at any point in the near future.”
“Shut up,” says Penny. “Don’t you and Phoebe have enough to keep you busy now that Paige and Henry are finally getting hitched?”
“I like weddings,” says Piper, “especially now we can have them without inviting disaster, the apocalypse, or the entire population of Narnia.”
“Fifty bucks says that Paige and Henry try to elope,” she says.
“No bet,” says Piper, “I’ve already told them that they can have as many beach, Vegas, or ten minute services as they like, but they will also have the wedding that Phoebe and I have planned because it will be beautiful.”
“Sometimes you are really scary, Piper,” says Penny.
_________________
“I never say it,” Sheldon tells her, one evening while they clear up after dinner.
Penny doesn’t ask him what he means.
“Me neither,” she says. “I don’t need to hear you say it, Sheldon. I can see it, feel it in the things you do.”
“I do, you know,” he says quietly, as he dries their tumblers.
He’s much better at it than her. She always leaves streaks and bits of fluff on the glass.
“I know,” she says, smiling. “Me too.”
“Yes,” he says, “I know.”
“That’s good then,” she says, taking the dishcloth from him and hanging it on the hook over the sink.
When they sit down on the sofa he pulls her on to his lap, so that she straddles his legs. She kisses him, softly, his lips soft and warm against hers. He places his hands on her hips, fingers slipping under her shirt, cool against her skin.
"Is this enough?"
She looks into his eyes.
"It's everything," she says, meaning every word.
The next day she opens the top drawer and pulls out the information on the local covens. It's all meticulously researched and easy to read. She smiles as she works her way through it, Sheldon's way of describing everything familiar and comforting. There's a hand written note, stapled between the last two pages.
Dear Penny, it says, Sheldon has told us a little about you. If you have any questions, or would like to join us, we meet every Tuesday.
There's an time, address, phone number and a slightly wonky smiley face. Penny runs her fingers over the note, thinks about days spent in the Halliwell kitchen, the smell of thyme and rosemary mixing with the heavy scent of brewing magic. She picks up the phone.
She tells him that night, while they share takeaway.
"I'm going to a meeting," she says, "on Tuesday."
He tenses a little beside her, expression serious.
"Will you be back in time for Thai food and Orphan Black?"
She smiles, so wide it makes her cheeks hurt. Reaches over and pokes him gently in the ribs.
"Of course," she says, laughing as he relaxes, leaning into her. "Of course.”
_________________
The following Tuesday she makes her way to a magic shop. It smells like incense and dried herbs. There are twelve chairs set in a circle in the back room. She's the last to arrive. She takes the only empty seat and looks at the faces around her. All friendly. Waiting.
"Hello," she says, finally ready to move on from years of grief, loss, and confusion. "My name is Penny and I'm a witch."