The last time, it could very well be a beginning.

Her sister arrives for an impromptu visit the next week.

"Kelly," Penny says, startled to find her standing in the hallway. "What are you doing here?"

Kelly has already engulfed her younger sister in a hug and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "How could you forget I'm coming?" she replies with a concerned smile, studying Penny's face. "We planned it weeks ago. Didn't you mark your calendar?"

Kelly is the brightest spark in the family. Nobody knows where her smarts, good organisation and general togetherness came from. She is a throwback, a remnant of some distant generation before their family were farmers. As she brushes her sister's hair from her face, Penny's eyes flick down and away – to her diary left open on the coffee table.

"I've…"

She hasn't been answering messages or even using her laptop the past couple of days, but this time it's not because she's miserable. She's been reminiscing; pouring over the diary until she knows the words off by heart and absently adding pictures to the pages that are still blank. It's not dwelling. It's therapy.

Fingers click in front of her face. "Hey? Are you in there?" Kelly asks, slipping inside and helping herself to a seat on the couch. Penny blinks and nods, heading for the kitchen to put coffee on without being asked.

"What's this?" Kelly holds up the book for a split second before starting to flip through the pages. Penny bustles around collecting clean mugs, not batting an eye at the invasion of privacy. They've been reading each other's diaries ever since they could write. 'Personal' is not a word that fits into the vocabulary of their relationship. She watches Kelly's face as she reads the diary, her mouth turning up in smiles and down with the pain of a frown. She looks like a future version of herself – the same confidence and startling beauty, the same sharp tongue and arching brow – but with feint bracket lines around the mouth and eyes: the parenthesis of thirty years' worth of words. She is slightly stockier and her eyes are not so tainted with the foolishness that Penny sometimes displays. She's the wizened version of Penny who reads books in her spare time instead of playing video games.

"You've never sounded so in love," Kelly remarks, glancing up from the book. "And I was thinking that long before I peeked into this."

"You don't have to tell me," Penny replies heavily, passing over a mug as she sinks down next to her sister. She holds her cup to her lips and lets her eyes sink closed. The bitter steam of the coffee warms her cheeks, like his kisses used to. "But I'm done crying about it. I'm done moping. I just need something to occupy my time until he comes back." She stretches her legs out and rests them on the table. "We'll see where we are when he comes home."

Kelly eyes her warily. "Since when did my little sister think so maturely?"

Penny nudges her arm. "Since she fell for a guy who needed a woman, not a girl."

"You know if you're looking for something to do…" Kelly flicks a couple of pages of the book at her. "These drawings are pretty damn good. You should take up an art class."

Penny snorts. "Get out; those are just scribbles I did when I couldn't be bothered writing."

"Maybe you should be lazy more often then. Seriously Pen, look at this one." It's a pen-sketched image of Sheldon's profile, done in moody tones and scratched over with red ink – from the times she'd been too afraid of her anger to put it into words. She shrugs a shoulder, embarrassed now. Never mind all the entries about them sleeping together or fighting; these pictures are snapshots of her feelings for Sheldon, the emotions too real and raw to be named.

"Now that's beautiful," Kelly continues.

Yes, he is, Penny thinks to herself.

"Why wouldn't you want to show these to people?"

Penny studies the seriousness in the drawing's eyes, for the first time realising that maybe she could go somewhere with this. The shading is a little off and the outlines aren't too perfect, but the heart is there. She plucks the diary from her sister's hands and smooths a palm over its cover.

"I'll think about it," she tells her.

***

He can't remember losing consciousness.

What he does recall is a bear claw the size of his head flying in that very direction, and since his temples are now throbbing with exquisite pain Sheldon is able to piece together what happened, though somewhat roughly. It's hard to focus when his chest aches with every breath and he feels like he's falling even though he's clearly in a hospital bed. But pinpricks of memory start to filter through. He is a genius after all, and even in a mildly dissociated state he can come to the conclusion he's been attacked by a polar bear.

Eyes like black holes – a flash of humanity in them – lashing out because it's frightened – Penny –

A fit of coughing seizes him, searing through his lungs like fire.

White looms above – falling to the ground – massive pressure – Penny –

The room spins as he tries not to spasm with the force of his coughs.

Blades rake down his cheek – too much weight –

"Penny," Sheldon gasps when he can't catch a breath, when he's suddenly afraid and in pain and miserable.

She doesn't come, but her name calms him down. The room rights itself, his head stops swimming. He holds a hand over his chest, listening to the monotonous beating of his heart. He looks to his bedside and realises Leonard is dozing in a chair in the corner.

"Leona –" Sheldon starts coughing again, and the sound finally rouses his friend.

"Hey buddy," Leonard says gently, shifting in the chair. "How are you feeling?"

Sheldon takes a steadying breath and eyes the room suspiciously. "It's sunny outside," he croaks.

"Yeah," Leonard replies. "We're home."

"Home?" he tries to sit up straight in alarm. "My research –"

"We took what we could, but you needed help."

"You had eighteen hours…" Sheldon argues through a drawn out breath, "To collect my research before help arrived."

"Believe it or not we did spend most of that trying to make sure you didn't die."

He doesn't know what to be more shocked by: their worrying, the failure of his expedition or the fact it isn't Penny who's by his side.

"Howard's trying to reach Penny now," Leonard says, providing the information his friend is too proud to ask for. "She didn't answer any Skype calls when we were in the Arctic."

"Howard's not allowed access to Penny's number."

"He's using my phone."

The thought of waiting for information on Penny tires him. He glances down at his bandaged chest and arm.

"I was mauled," he states. "I always said bears were terrifying."

"You weren't mauled," Leonard chastises. "The bear was leaning into the door and fell when you opened it. You spooked it, that's all."

"That's all? Leonard, I –" he coughs viciously, wincing at the pain that spikes through his chest.

"You were lucky, Sheldon," Leonard says, adopting a softer tone. "You could have died."

The truth of this is humbling. "So what does being 'lucky' mean, in terms of a bear attack?" he asks, once again inspecting his bandages.

"Two broken ribs and some scratches. You're going to be in pain for a while, and you'll need medication but there's not a lot else they can do for you."

He thinks of the arduous and painful recovery ahead of him. "Leonard?"

"Yeah buddy?"

"Remind me to start work on accelerating cellular regeneration when I get home."

"I'll put a note on your board."

"Nobody touches my board."

"You let Penny write on it in permanent marker."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Sheldon that has nothing to do with his injuries.

"I'm not going to apologise just because I mentioned her name," Leonard says stonily. "One minute it's fine and the next it's not. You have to make up your mind, Sheldon. Either you want her or you don't."

They both know his mind has been made up for a long time now.

Whether or not he voices his thoughts is another matter.

"You know," Leonard continues, easing his voice to a friendlier tone, "Pretending you don't care is kind of like lying. And you're terrible at that."

Sheldon nods, not quite smiling, and closes his eyes.

"I'd better go see if Penny's at reception yet," Leonard says after a while.

"I'm still in pain," Sheldon argues, his best attempt at a plea to not be left alone.

"You know where the morphine button is; it'll put you out soon anyway."

He stands to leave but Sheldon reaches out with a wince and catches his friend's arm. The contact stops Leonard.

"I don't know what the protocol is here," the scientist admits, not for the first time.

Leonard smiles. "You still love her, right?"

Sheldon looks down and away. "Against my better judgement…yes," he murmurs.

"Then you'll be fine," he replies, and Sheldon's hand drops.

***

What is it about hospitals that make you feel so naked?

Just stepping into the reception bay Penny joins a world of exposure: everything is so white you can't blend in; people are in such a hurry that there's no time to be subtle about what you need. Here I am, your presence screams the moment you pass through those doors. Help me. The rooms are filled with people crying, pacing; people are whispering and begging and offering comfort to those for whom none of these actions has worked. Howard's message is short and simple: Sheldon is home, in hospital. Following this information is an accusing silence that asks why didn't you answer our calls sooner? As she throws herself at the reception desk she thinks of her apartment littered with crumpled paper, scattered pencils and enough drawings to fill a gallery. She'd been so immersed in her new hobby that real life had taken a backseat. It wasn't until Howard's phone call woke her from her stupor that she'd realised the hobby had consumed her. She'd remembered waking the previous night to find her hand poised in the air as if ready to trap a wayward thought in pencil. She'd found her laptop crushed under a pad of paper and had seen the dozens of missed Skype calls lined up. The cliché of hoping she's not too late doesn't apply. The idea that she wouldn't know if something was seriously wrong is just impossible.

Leonard is supposed to meet her here, but Penny sees no familiar face – only those of the desperate and the optimistic. Which one am I? she thinks idly, abandoning the room to take the elevator. She stabs at the button, but it does not light up. She nearly cries with nostalgia.

The damn thing is out of order.

Sheldon's room is so many floors above that it tries her patience not to just start running, but she forces herself to breathe evenly and keep a steady pace as she climbs the service stairs. It's been nearly three months since they've seen each other and she'll be damned if she's going to meet him sweaty and red-faced.

God forbid he might think she'd been in a hurry to find him.

Even though she totally is, and with every passing minute she's getting closer to crying with frustration.

"What kind of hospital has elevators that don't work?" she grumbles into her sleeve, pausing to rest halfway up.

Eight floors to go.

"Don't tell Sheldon the place isn't up to standard; he's not healthy enough for a transfer but he'll demand one anyway."

She jumps at the voice above her. It's one part whiny, two parts breathless and so completely comforting.

"Leonard," she follows the breath of her sigh up the stairs to embrace him. After all, it's not just Sheldon she's been missing. There hasn't been only one thing absent from her life, but four. Leonard is more than warm, flushed hot with exertion, like she's trying not to be. He smells like some faraway place that she can't name. And he's here, his grip on her constantly changing from firm to light because he's missed her but he also knows she belongs to someone else.

"It's so good to see you," he says, his voice belying that it's more than good.

"I would've come straight away but I didn't know!" she cries, now that the thrill of seeing him has worn down to a pleasant hum. "My laptop was…and I've been…" Been what? Penny thinks of the dozens of missed work shifts, of the unpaid bills and the resume that hasn't seen the inside of an acting agency for weeks. Yet she can't say she's been unfocused. The drawing has sharpened her thoughts, if anything. She remembers her sister's encouragements. "I've been indulging a new hobby."

Leonard seems wary as they finally stand apart. "It's not World of Warcraft this time, is it?"

"It's not a game, it's totally healthy," she replies, eyeing the stairs above, suddenly anxious. "Anyway –"

"Come on," Leonard takes her hand. "He's this way."

***

Strangely enough, as Penny stands outside Sheldon's room, she thinks of Mary Cooper.

His childhood soundtrack had been a mixture of blaring lectures, his parents screaming bloody murder and the words of the bible laid over him like a stifling blanket. She remembers the evening she'd learnt all this as she raises a hand to turn the handle.

"I detest fighting," he murmurs against the shell of her ear. The tension has evaporated since their argument in line at the snack bar. "My childhood was riddled with the sounds of my mother and father threatening to disembowel or divorce each other, no matter what Jesus thought."

She revels in the feel of his lips brushing just below her ear. "It just feels like sometimes you're ignoring me," she replies, well aware that the movie-goers around them are giving disapproving looks.

"That's because I am ignoring you," he answers, "I avoid you when you seem to be searching for something to argue over."

"All couples fight, Sheldon." She ignores the pointed cough from the woman next to her.

"I know. My parents were a prime example." He leans in close enough that she can smell popcorn and apologies. "Which is why I never want us to go down that path."

Did Sheldon ever get to see this part of his parent's relationship? Did he ever hear the muted sounds of amends being made, or did he only ever witness the destruction? She wonders how many times Mary Cooper promised her husband that it would all be okay, until the day he died and left so many real feelings left unsaid, so many real apologies left to be made. She won't let Sheldon down like his parents had. If this is the final break up, so be it. If this is a tentative reunion, that's even better. But it's going to mean something, no matter what. She doesn't want to leave that room feeling as if nothing's happened, nothing's been defined. Without pause for anymore thought she sidles into the room.

She's forgotten how soothing it is to see him asleep.

Even though his whole chest is bandaged and his face is marred, he gives little serene sighs and flexes his fingers. Probably holding a whiteboard marker, she reasons, watching his hand curl into a light fist. He's still so Sheldon but he's not. He hasn't got a hugely overgrown beard like the others, but it's enough to make her stare. She's never seen him looking so battered and unkempt.

When she closes the door his eyes flutter open, bleary with the pain meds.

Confusion: Sheldon can't focus. He sees stark lights and colours in disarray, a blur of pink and yellow at the door.

Clarity: His eyes adjust and home in on the shapes in the room: chair, the end of the bed, Penny. Penny.

Fear. His chest begins to rattle with heavy breaths. They hurt, but not as much as seeing the matching look of fright on her face.

Penny clears her throat. "I've heard of 'going native' but I think wrestling with bears is just going too far," she says with a semblance of nonchalance.

He takes a breath that could fill a whale's lungs. "Bear wrestling is illegal," he replies groggily, though his eyes have become sharply focused on her. "And far below my moral standards."

She shakes her head. "Of course," she says curtly. Had she expected any better of him? A weepy apology? A heartfelt plea for forgiveness? Sheldon Cooper doesn't apologise with tears in his eyes, he rescinds strikes. He doesn't plea for forgiveness, he lifts banishments.

Apprehension. Is he ever going to rescind her strikes? There have been so many.

But he's done plenty wrong by her as well.

"Hello," he says in that same meek little way and oh, there it is, that urge to forgive him because he sounds so much like a guilt-riddled child.

Except he's not. He's hurt her. He's been gone.

But Penny has missed the spaces he fills in her life.

"Hey," she replies at last as something uncoils within her, and suddenly she remembers fighting with her sister as a child.

"I hate you! As soon as I'm eighteen I'm moving out so I never have to talk to you again!"

"I hate you more!" Penny shouts, stamping her feet. "Let's start right now. Stop talking to me!"

They don't speak or acknowledge each other's presence for three days – an eternity when you're six and seven. Especially when you both share the same living space, the same playhouse by the barn and pony named Alice. After dinner that third day Penny yields, missing her best friend, her confidant. She crawls up onto the sofa and right into Kelly's lap, who doesn't say a word, only places her arms tight around her little sister's body.

"Missed you," she whispers.

"We've been so stupid," she blurts, edging closer to his bed.

He looks surprised. "We?"

"How did we ever think we could avoid this forever? I live like ten feet away from you, Sheldon. We couldn't just ignore each other. And it's not like I was just going to cut Leonard out of my life."

"I agree that proximal distance and overlapping social circles may have hindered our attempts to feign indifference to one another." He licks his lips. The effort of speech makes his mouth dry. "What's your point?"

"That I was an idiot."

"Yes, you were. But admittedly I have not been thinking clearly for quite some time."

She ignores that first part. "And now that you've been mauled by a bear and can't run away, I think it's time we acted like adults and dealt with this."

He's surprised by the maturity in her voice, but experience has taught him to beware of moments like this. "You're not going to yell, are you?"

She's still upset, but she's not going to shout at a guy who can barely take a breath without wincing. He seems to pick up on this fairly quickly when she starts to tremble, the nervousness breaking free from where she's been hiding it.

"I wanted you to die," she admits, "I wished for it."

He doesn't believe it for a second. "No you didn't."

"No, but I wanted to want you to die. What kind of person wants someone dead over a break up?"

"Someone who has experienced a fair amount of pain."

It's easier to nod than to speak. The fact that he's justified her horrific thoughts makes her quivering frame settle.

"I was still right about some of the points I made," she says carefully, but his gaze on her does not waver with any discernible expression.

"For example?"

"Well…after a while, you forgot to make space for me. I think you took me for granted. But I know I forgot that you took a while to change, too. I forgot that I'd loved you for that."

"Loved?" he queries, licking his lips again.

"Love," she whispers, so quietly that he doesn't hear.

And then the three feet between them have become two, and one, and then just a hair's breadth as she leans over – careful of his chest – and tries to find, in his mouth, what it was that had made her love dissolve into hate. Because maybe if she can find that spark of bitterness, of clashing, if she can taste it and label it then maybe she can remember all the reasons why they have so much more to work on still and that this is not a good idea. She grabs at his hospital gown and fits her hand around the back of his head, lifting his mouth up to hers as they groan and fall apart within each other – until suddenly Sheldon's lips tear away. They're tingling and he feels light headed and they both realise it's not because of this, it's because he can't breathe and his chest is heaving painfully and he coughs hard.

Penny's hand covers her mouth, shocked that she could still be so utterly stupid.

"Are you okay?" she asks for the first time, laying a steadying hand on his shoulder while he gets his breath back.

You're a danger to my well being, he thinks, in so many ways. He nods.

"My God," Penny growls, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm so sorry. What the hell are we doing?"

"I believe this is called a 'kiss and make up' scene."

She laughs gently. "How can it be when we can't even kiss without you going blue?"

She has to look away from him then, just to get her bearings and stop drowning in him. Her eyes alight on her handbag, on the diary inside.

No time like the present.

There's nothing more she can say right now, so she reaches into her bag and holds her diary out as if the memories are dragging its weight down. She takes his hand just long enough to feel the cold in them and presses the warmth of the book into his grip.

"What's this?"

"A reminder of the way we used to be. Because I haven't forgotten, as hard as that is to believe."

"It's not hard," Sheldon replies, scratching his beard as he flips through the pages. This supplies extensive proof of that.

She makes some strong points in the later pages, but he doesn't dwell on those. He's focused on the drawings of himself. They are roughly detailed and the toning isn't perfect, but somehow these inaccuracies just don't seem as important as the stirring sensation they create inside him.

"These are fascinating," he says quietly, and she grins because it's not often he openly compliments her. He closes the book and holds it tightly in his hand, eyes flicking to his own gift on the bedside table.

"So was it worth it?" she asks ambiguously, before he can get a chance to mention it.

"Was what worth it?"

"Leaving. Did you get anything from it?"

She can tell when he's thinking of science, and when he's thinking of her, but this look seems to be a mix of the two. And she can't pick what his answer is going to be.

"I'm not going to be famous," he says at last. "We did not complete our research before –" he sees a flash of blood, white fur and shivers. "The expedition was a failure. Perhaps, if I hadn't been so distracted…"

"What could possibly distract Sheldon Cooper from his work?"

He picks up his gift from the table and sighs, a world weary sound that gives the impression this book has consumed him and it's an effort to give it up. She takes it hesitantly.

"Open it," he instructs softly.

Without glancing at the cover she flips it open and inspects the first page.

You constructed one thousand Penny Blossoms in a single night.

It's written in his unmistakable scientist scrawl. Around the edge of the page are dried flowers.

Blossoms.

Penny looks up from the page at him, but Sheldon's expression says nothing but keep looking.

The next page contains the picture of her and Sheldon, red faced and ruffled, coming out of her bedroom.

"I thought you made Howard delete that," she says quietly.

"He sent it to a folder disguised as a recycle bin."

"Of course."

Beneath it in quotation marks are words:

"Upon collecting our take out, you ensure that Wolowitz' meal is devoid of peanut products before leaving the restaurant."

"Just because I had to punch him in the face once doesn't mean I want him to die of anaphylactic shock."

Following this is a page filled with words: Anaphylactic, Farman-Farmaian, Schrödinger's Cat…a list of words she knows off by heart, mostly because they'd come from him. She starts to flip through at random; there are pictures of her and Sheldon from their one and only attempt to conquer the beach and comments about her uncanny ability to construct sandcastles; pencilled sketches of her below the explanation: Two months, four days, seventy three hours and twelve minutes until I return home. This is what I spent the afternoon working on, rather than the monopoles.

There is one page filled with a list that has no title. Some entries are dull with age, others with their ink still bright:

Subject prefers mouth to fingers.

Subject has a high tolerance for light-touch teasing – prefers firm pressure.

Subject shows a negative response to tongue on the naval area.

Whispering into this area is fine.

She particularly enjoys when I whisper scientific theories into the collarbone and ear.

She is comforted by my pointing out her attributes.

She says she wishes I wouldn't talk so much, yet smiles whenever I do.

This contradiction suggests secret affection.

She smiled for the first time during coitus tonight. Theory: romantic attraction to me.

Penny's body hair stands on end when I brush my fingers over her arm.

Penny is ticklish around her feet. Unlike her sensitive abdomen, this is not enjoyable to tease her about. Keep head a good distance from feet in the event of tickling.

When planning to initiate sex, serving watermelon helps. Penny enjoys licking the juice off skin.

Despite provocation on my part, Penny does not frequently say she loves me. She is of the opinion that the less something is said, the more it means.

It seems he hasn't stopped cataloguing her reactions since the night he first proposed that experiment.

With a hand that's slightly shaking, she turns to the last page.

There are more blossoms surrounding a photo of her kissing him. It's hardly the most romantic picture in the world: his mother had taken it last Thanksgiving, wanting proof of Sheldon's first girlfriend. He hadn't wanted any photos but Penny, woozy with affection rather than alcohol, proceeded to smother his cheek with kisses interrupted by peals of giggling. In an effort to prevent his escape she'd wrapped her arms firm around his shoulders but she's needn't have worried. His face had said he hated it but his eyes said he never wanted her to stop.

And the words: Although there are many factors to the contrary, these are the aspects that make me want and love you.

It's the Book of Penny.

"Sheldon…this –" she can't talk. There is the smallest smile upturned on his mouth, a glint in his eyes. She's struck with a feeling she hasn't felt in a long, long time – like a rock has loosened inside her and the avalanche is about to come roaring down. Is it possible to fall in love with the same man all over again?

"This isn't a 'forgive and forget' moment," she says at last, setting the book down at his feet.

He's silent. He knows there's more to come.

"We have issues. I'm a hothead and you're kind of a nutcase."

"I'm aware of our clashing personalities, but you might agree that the benefits of our union often outweigh the costs?"

"That's not what you said before. You told me you'd rather be successful."

"Doesn't my diary disprove that abhorrent thought?"

She feels so very small, tiny but filled with light. "Yes."

"So then how do you…" Sheldon coughs. "How do you feel now?"

She lets out a shaky breath. "Scared. I want this to work. But I know what we're like. I know we're going to fight again."

"We've never been completely compatible," he replies, "That's what made it interesting," he utters barely audibly, looking down at the diary in his hands. "So what do you propose we do?"

Penny wipes the corner of her eye. "I think…" she climbs onto the bed and curls into him lightly like a vine, an olive branch, a promise. It has been so very long since they've simply allowed themselves to exist side by side in the same space. Not arguing or even speaking, just being. They can feel the pull of a thousand memories inside telling them yes, this is how it should be.

"I think…" Her fingers, womanly and moisturised, link with his, well kempt and yet still those of a man. He inspects their joining and it strikes him not for the first time that there's more to this union than flesh and bone. There's a flame. She looks at him with a face that says she feels it too, and gives an answer that's nothing more than a loving jest.

"I think maybe we should sleep on it."

The End.