Greetings. I am hurrying to finish everything. I have some lung issues that do not seem to respeond to medications and I'm back in the 40-bed hospital that serves our community. They have wi-fi so I'm happy although breathing is a labor. Dug^2 is always here and he's my rock when I panic. Read and enjoy. it rambles but then so does my mind, lol.

Chapter 33

Larson Farms

"He said what?" Penny's mom could not seem to catch her breath, she was laughing too hard at Penny's recital of the events at the mall.

"Peanut Butter Legs! I swear, Mom, I thought she was going to go off on him but he just smiled at her and then we left but not before he graciously called her the school whore."

Sheldon and Penny's father were out in search of the perfect Christmas tree. Sheldon rode along in the jeep while Penny's father groused that 'no granddaughter of mine is going to have some artificial tree for her first Christmas." Sheldon didn't really care nor did he think the Gracie would care one bit. To her it would just be something that had shiny things on it and was perfect to climb up on.

"Son, you and Penny, are you going to go home to Pasadena or what? She's a lot better, especially since you showed up. This post-whatever – "

"Postpartum, Wyatt, it's Postpartum Depression. Used to be called the 'Baby Blues' before the shrinks made it an 'official' condition."

"Yeah, well, she's better and I want to see her stay that way. You two are the most unlikely pair I've ever laid eyes on but it works and that's all that's important. Make her happy, son, and you'll make Jennifer happy and me happy and if we're all happy, you have got to be happy, right? No losers."

He pulled the jeep up to a stand of pines and got out and grabbed the chain saw from the back of the jeep. "Pick out a good one, son. First Christmas as a family and Gracie's first."

"Oh, crap, it's Darcy and Sparky. Mom, I think I feel a headache coming on and I'm going to lie down with Gracie until Shel's back, assuming Daddy doesn't kill him."

"Your father really likes your young man. He says he's 'a damned improvement over the little Squint'."

"Mom! Leonard's a nice guy, really. He's just not the one for me, that's all. I like my men with blue eyes and big hands and tall, gotta be tall, and smart. Gotta be scary smart. And sweet."

"Well, Sheldon is tall. He has blue eyes and he has those long fingers that can drive a woman – "

"MOTHER! I am not having this conversation with you. Not now. Not ever!"

"What conversation?" Darcy stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a taller version of her mother. Once she might have been considered pretty but she was carrying 20 extra pounds, her eyes were washed out and she had developed a whiney tone to her voice and was terribly jealous of anything her baby sister did that smacked of success.

Marrying a Nobel Prize Winner and having a beautiful house and daughter were the most successful things to have occurred to anyone in the county since Prohibition was repealed. The only saving grace was that she'd blown it – big time – just like every other chance at success she'd had in her life.

"We were talking about her husband's hands. They're big and have long fingers and – "

"Mother!" She turned beet red and hid her face in her hands. Her mother had warned her that 'paybacks are a bitch, honey'.

"So where is the Great Man? Is that your ride out there, Penny? The one with the big scrape down the side? Not much of a car and not much of a driver either."

"For your information, I'm the one who put the scrape in the tank. I got dizzy and ploughed into the side of the house. Sheldon insisted on a Volvo station wagon after reviewing all the safety data. We'll probably trade it in on something else now but that'll be up to him."

Darcy frowned. She expected to get a rise out of her sister but she'd just explained away the 'tank' as if it were any every day thing.

"Okay, well, where is he?"

"Out with your father getting a real Christmas tree for Gracie's first Christmas. They took the jeep but should have been back a while ago. You know your father – it has to be perfectly symmetrical and I think Sheldon's right there with him."

"Sheldon, son, surely to God this one is symmetrical enough? I'll admit that the first one was top-heavy and the second one had that big hole in it but this one is…"

"Perfect! Cut it down and let's get home. I swear to Isaac Newton that all it does around here is snow!" Sheldon shivered realistically although he really wasn't all that cold. He was enjoying himself and so was his father-in-law. Wyatt had an eye for symmetry and he shared Sheldon's zeal for perfection.

They tied the tree onto the roof of the Jeep Cherokee and got in. It was really snowing; it had been coming down in huge flakes that seemed to take forever to settle but now the wind was picking up and you couldn't see your hand before you face.

The Jeep wouldn't start.

Sheldon shook his cell phone and groused, "No bars."

"It's only a few miles. We'll walk it. Won't take long at all. We'll bring back the tractor and tow it back."

Wyatt reached behind the passenger seat and pulled out an emergency backpack. Sheldon's opinion of his father-in-law went up 2-fold.

"Can't be too careful, son. There are two thermal blankets, some heat tabs, plastic water bottles, some pop-flares, a compass, a knife, and a survival pistol. We got some mean critters round here in winter. Get right ravenous, 'specially in snow."

He laughed at the look on Sheldon's face. "It's for snakes in the spring and summer. Worst we get in winter is the occasional badger or coyote but they keep their distance. Oh, there's a wool cap in there. Put it on. Eighty-five – "

"Percent of heat loss occurs through the head. The only thing I'd add to your pack might be some cylume sticks in the event you had to mark your path or set out a perimeter."

"Hadn't thought of those. Good idea."

They walked. And walked. Sheldon kept a hand on Wyatt's shoulder to keep from losing him in the dark blowing snow.

"This is a damned blizzard. The channel 10 guy and I are gonna have words!" Sheldon had timed their walk and kept their pace count (it was just one of the things his OCD made automatic) and he knew they'd either walked right past the farm complex or had gradually circled around.

"Wyatt, by my count, we have walked 3.2 miles so either we walked past the farm or – "

"Or we've gradually circled to the right and will probably stumble on the stand of pines soon. Listen, son, I think we're in deep shit. Can't see where we're going and we should have stayed with the Jeep. We haven't walked past the farm because we would have run into fencing. Nope. 1500 acres and we're at the far end. We need to find shelter. Jennifer and Penny will come find us when the storm breaks."

"More than likely they'll find us in the Spring," sighed Sheldon and Wyatt just laughed and pointed out the shape of the jeep in the distance.

"Oh, ye of little faith!" Wyatt's voice boomed out.

"It was Science and the fact that right-handed people tend to drift right when walking without a fixed point of destination."

"Picky, picky, picky…"

They clamored inside the Jeep and Wyatt tried the starter and – it started.

"Must be a Christmas miracle, Sheldon." Wyatt wasn't terribly religious at the best of times.

"Hokum. Let's get going. We have a tree to level and decorate and I could use a hot shower."

"Level? Why the damned cut's near perfect, Sheldon. Wyatt Larson has never made a crooked cut in his whole damned life."

"We'll see. I propose we tie a string from the tip to the ceiling and use it as a perpendicular to facilitate our endeavors."

"Yeah, sure. Facilitate our endeavors. Boy, don't you ever speak plain English?"

"Picky, picky, picky."

And thus a friendship was born.

Penny had been patiently ignoring her sister's comments to her mother about anything and everything as only a put-upon younger sister can do when she saw the lights of the Jeep sweep across the front of the house.

"They're back! Oh, wow! They got a monster tree!" Penny was trying to see Sheldon through the snow. He hadn't been wearing enough warm clothes and she worried about his health. He was far from frail but still, she didn't want him sick for Christmas.

Wyatt came trudging up the porch steps and stomped the snow off his boots and then stepped into the warm house. "I'm getting too old for this crap. A man my age should be pampered and coddled, brought his slippers, a shot of whiskey and a willingly wench, not forced out into the blizzard to fetch a Yule tree."

Jennifer handed him a beer and whispered that the 'willing wench' would appear later.

Sheldon dragged the tree up the steps and leaned it against the front of the house and kicked off his boots and went inside. Wyatt was going on about their walk in the blizzard and 'picky, picky, picky' would soon be the family's new moniker for Wyatt and Sheldon.

"Hey, Moon Pie. Where ya been?" Penny wrapped her arms around her husband's middle and squeezed him. "I was getting worried."

"The Jeep wouldn't start so we decided to walk but then the blizzard hit and we ended up back where we started – "

"Picky, picky, picky," Wyatt's voiced called out. "You're so damned picky."

"But you drove up in the Jeep, honey." Now she was confused.

"It started. Wyatt claims divine miracle while I say – mmph" Her lips shut him up and his thoughts soon traveled upstairs to their warm bed and –

"Sheldon! Put me down! Sheldon…" He scooped her up and nodded to his in-laws and said he just wanted to go check on Gracie.

"Well, there goes my help. Sparky, get a piece of string and tie it to the top of the tree…"

Penny's room

"Shelley! My parents are downstairs and so are my sister and her husband! They're going to think that - "

He shut her up with a hard kiss while pulling her jeans and panties down around her ankles in one move. He pushed her back on the bed and dragged off her shoes and socks and grabbed her jeans by the hems and dragged them off and tossed them in a corner.

"Not if you don't scream when you climax, Penny." She was already wet and from her scent, ready for coitus. Sheldon got on his knees between her legs and placed himself at her entrance and then eased into her, still aware of her issues.

"Holy crap on a cracker, how did that get so damned cold?" His cock was like ice and she thought furiously about where she could buy a novelty item she'd seen in the Dollar Tree catalog – a 'Cock Sock'. A big one.

Wyatt hid his grin and his wife abruptly went to 'make coffee' when the four tree-trimmers heard Penny's giggling shrieks and then a rhythmic thumping that got faster and faster as the headboard of Penny's childhood bed slammed into the wall, knocking down memorabilia that had hung there for years.

Penny's sister got a faraway look in her eyes remembering other times while Sparky just grinned at Wyatt and muttered something about how the 'scrawny dude's got some drive'. By mutual agreement the combatant couple drove home to engage in combat of another kind.

Probably hours later

Penny slipped on a robe and went to check on Gracie and then eased her way downstairs to see if her parents were still awake. She felt deliciously sore in places and she didn't mind it at all. Things were getting back on course and if the therapist gave her blessing, they'd be heading back to Pasadena after the New Year to become a family once again.

She glanced at the old Regulator on the mantle – 3am. They'd made love and slept and then did it again and she'd never felt safer and more wanted before. Sheldon had done things she didn't even know he knew how to do but when she tried to talk, he just kissed her or took her breath away with a caress or touch.

"Come back to bed, Penny. You'll catch cold," Sheldon whispered, wrapping her in the old quilt from her bed that he'd wrapped himself in.

"Can we just sit on the couch and watch the fire? The tree looks so pretty in the firelight. The house looks so nice this time of year all snow-covered and cozy – like a Currier & Ives lithograph."

"You don't have to leave, Penny. You can stay here and – "

"Wait! Wait a minute! I thought we agreed that I'd be coming back with you to Pasadena and – "

"I've decided not to go back to Pasadena. There's nothing there for me anymore. I've got offers from many universities to lecture, study, just appear on campus for alumni donations…"

"But Sheldon, you said you wanted us to try and be a family again. That's what this week was all about, IS all about."

"Yep, but I've decided to accept a teaching/research position far, far from California and the commute would be murder." He was toying with her and when she started to sniffle he knew he'd pushed too far.

"Penny, I'm the new Nobel Guest Lecturer and Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Think your folks would mind putting up with us until we can find some land and build a house and start our own spread? Longhorns and Santa Gertrudis to start. I'll expect you to manage your dad's place as well as supervise ours and – "

"But what about our friends? Our house?" She wanted it but wasn't sure if her husband was aware of just what he was suggesting. She wriggled around until she was straddling him so that she could look into his eyes when he spoke.

"They'll still be our friends and I've leased the house to Howard and Bernadette as their Christmas present for $1 a month. I hadn't decided on Omaha for certain but I knew I couldn't go back to Pasadena without you and Gracie but then I found this place..."

"We'll have to pay them rent – I won't freeload off my folks."

"Done. And since I don't start until summer, I'll be able to work around here and relearn how things are done."

"Sheldon, am I dreaming?" She jumped when he pinched her butt. "Okay. Let's go back to bed. I love you, Sheldon. Merry Christmas. Thanks for the best presents ever."

"Ilove you more than anything, Penny, but there was No way I was going back to the mall, Penny. It seemed a logical choice."

"Shellllllllldon...?" He knew that drawn out use of his name spelled trouble.

"Yes, Penny?"

"Your vascectomy - it is reversible, right?"

A/N: Merry Christmas.