AN: Not much left, okay? Maybe three or four chapters. Prepare yourselves for the end...

The days passed in a blur for Penny. Christmas came and went, and though she had numerous invitations to parties and dinners for the occasion, she didn't stir from the loft, much to Cam's dismay.

"I'll be fine on my own for a few hours," he insisted on New Year's Eve. "You should get out a little, see people."

"I don't want to go," Penny replied, settling down on the couch with a glass of wine. 

"It was bad enough when you didn't go to your family for Christmas," he answered, sitting next to her. 

"We're Jewish, we don't celebrate Christmas," she answered briefly.

"Well, Hanukkah, then," Cam responded.

"You didn't have Vivi out for Christmas, either," Penny retorted. "You were all alone yourself, weren't you?"

"Never mind," Cam said, turning away.

That seemed to put an end to the conversation for both of them, so they sat and watched the insipid New Year's Eve music shows until the ball dropped in Time's Square. They could hear the booming of the fireworks and various noisemakers on the street, along with the shouting of the merrymakers outside. Carol Channing sat up from where she was napping, looking irritated and alarmed at the noise, which made both of them smile.

"Well, I'm knackered, I guess I'll take my meds and toddle off to bed," Cameron declared. He'd lately been well enough to take over most of his medications on his own, though he still needed Penny to apply the ointment to his face.

Penny rose and staggered a little.

"Whoopsy," she said with a laugh. "I guess I had a lil too much wine."

"You know, you've been saying that a lot lately," Cameron said as they walked toward his bathroom.

Penny ignored him.

He lowered the lid on the toilet and sat so she could apply the ointment to his face. The sutures had come out the week before, and that had made a vast improvement to his face. Now there remained only a multitude of red lines and the droop to his left eye, along with the line running through his mouth.

"Have you thought any more about auditioning in the New Year?" Cam asked.

"Shh, stop moving or it'll get in your mouth, and you know how awful it tastes," Penny replied.

"Well, answer me and I'll stop."

"No, I haven't."

"Why not?"

"I'm busy at the moment, I don't have time to audition. Plus, nothing my agent's sent to me looks interesting. Now stop talking or I'll have to start all over."

Cam was silent for a bit, then he spoke again. "Have you been looking for another place to live?"

 "For fuck's sake, Cameron! I've gone and gotten it on your lips! Now don't move, please." She got some toilet paper and carefully dabbed it so it wouldn't get in his mouth.

"To answer your question, no I haven't found another place to live yet, but this is a bad time to be looking, so just cut me a little slack, okay? A lot of times, places open up after new year, so we'll see what happens." She pulled back a little so she could look into his eyes. "I promise I'll be out of here soon."

Cam nodded and opened his mouth, but didn't say anything when she laid a gentle finger across his lips. "No. Stop talking and let me finish so you can get to bed, please." He nodded again.

When he was finally in bed, sitting up with a book, he spoke. "Penelope?"

"Yes?" She turned from the doorway.

"I just wanted to--to--thank you." He looked away, then back. "For everything. For staying and caring for me, even after I said those things to you, after I spoke so appallingly to you."

Penny gave him a measured smile. "Of course I'm going to stay. What else would I do? I love you, Cam."

Cam blinked at her in surprise. "No, Penelope, not--surely not anymore?"

Now it was Penny's turn to look surprised. "Why not, Cameron? What's changed? Just because you were medicated, doped to your eyeballs and said some mean things to me? You think my feelings are going to change because of that?"

"Well, that, plus how I've been treating you these past months, plus, well, you know," and here he gestured toward his face.

Penny drew her brows together. "What?" She took a few steps back into his room. "You mean your face? Is that what you mean?"

 Cam nodded. "Look, you can't just say, 'your face,' just glibly like that. This isn't just a face. This is a horror story, Penelope. This is something children will run screaming from, back to their mothers." He took a deep breath. "My face is a screaming ruin, let's just call it what it is, yeah?"

Penny approached the rest of the way and sat on the edge of the bed. "Whatever. Your face, though, is just that, Cameron, it's your face. It's not you. It has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about you, you must know that, you must--" she broke off, unable to continue. She put her hand to her mouth, trying to hold in her sobs.

"Well, that's all very nice and sentimental and everything, but you can't sit there and tell me that you didn't like me at least in part for my face," Cameron responded, smiling, and in the smile Penny could see a ghost of the old Cameron, the teaser, the smart aleck, the smirk, the uplift at the corner.

"Of course I did, I'm not blind," she retorted with spirit. "But so what? Your face was extra, it wasn't the reason I loved you, you idiot!" Penny sniffed as she shook her head. "You're so incredibly stupid sometimes. Now go to sleep." And she leaned forward to kiss him good night.

He lifted his mouth without thinking, reaching out a hand to cup her cheek. Their lips met like it was the most natural, normal thing in the world, and Cam let out a groan, realizing as it was happening how much he'd missed it, how much he'd missed kissing this girl.

Penny could feel the ridge of the sutures along both his upper and lower lip, and tried to be careful, though she knew the vicious cut inflicted on Cam's mouth by her ex had healed. She could taste traces of the medication on his lips, but mainly she tasted Cameron's toothpaste, and even a bit of the wine he'd been drinking while they watched TV. 

He pressed his tongue into her mouth, gently seeking, ready to withdraw if she seemed unwilling in any way, but all Penny did was part her lips a little more, accepting him into her space with a slight smile, touching his with her own, making a happy sound as well.

She pressed her palms onto his hard torso as he leaned back on the pillows, pulling her with him, breaking the kiss and turning his head for a better angle. 

Finally, he stopped and pulled away, putting his hands on top of hers and pushing them back into her own body.

He sighed and looked down, unwilling to meet her gaze.

"Shit, Penelope, I'm so sorry."

"What? Why?" Penny was shocked. "Why are you sorry?"

"I shouldn't be sending mixed signals like that," Cam said. "In one breath I'm telling you you need to move out and get on with things, and in the next I'm kissing you like I still love you--"

"You--you--don't love me anymore?" Penny gasped, her voice barely audible. "You don't love me anymore?" She rose and backed up into the middle of the room. 

"No, that's not what I meant--dammit, I've bollocksed it up all kinds of ways--"

"It's what you said--"

"No, Penelope--"

"What? What did you mean, then? Please, tell me what you meant!" Penny felt like she might be sick, right there in the middle of Cameron's room.

Cam could feel tears burning his eyes and his scars as they slid down his cheeks, but he ignored the pain for the moment, trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.

"Fuck it all, you shouldn't be with me, don't you see?" Cameron finally said, his voice so faint Penny had to stop crying so she could hear him.

"What?"

"Look at me!" Cameron gestured to himself. "I'm half a man, I'm barely human anymore. I've no right to keep you tethered to me anymore! You're young, you're full of life, so vital, so marvelous, so fucking beautiful--" his voice broke on the last word. "You should be with someone just like you, don't you see? But instead, you're stuck here with me, and you're dying a little, every day, and I see you doing it, and you're crawling into a bottle, it's as though that arsehole Fredrick cut up two people that day instead of just me, don't you see?"

Penny finally noticed the tears streaking down Cam's face.

"Oh god, Cameron, stop crying, it's so bad for your wounds, please--"

"Stop it!" He waved her away. "I wish I'd died that day, just so you wouldn't be stuck here with me!"

"Don't say that!" Penny was horrified. "Please don't say that, Cam, please!"

"Look, I've been trying so hard to be strong and normal, for your sake, but I can't anymore, so I'm just going to tell the truth, yeah?" Cam carefully wiped his nose, trying not to touch his injuries. "I don't want you with me anymore. I want you to go out and find someone who deserves you. I want you to audition and act and win awards and fall in love and marry and have fat beautiful babies, okay?" He gave her a level look. "My life is basically over. My face, my existence, is a horrific ruin. I'm not bringing you down with me. I love you too much. I could do it to Claire because I didn't give two farts about her.

"But not you, Penguin." He sniffed. "So pack your things and get the fuck out. Go and find your life. Find someone who deserves you, dammit."

Penny looked back at Cam and wiped her own eyes. She shook her head. "No," she finally said. "You made two mistakes, Cam. If you really wanted me to go, you shouldn't have told me you still love me, you know?" She walked over and sat back down on the bed, turning to lie down next to Cameron. She put an arm across his tummy, snuggling in to his side.

"So you can acknowledge me, and welcome me into your life, or you can continue to be mean to me and treat me all weird and shitty like you have been, but I'm not going anywhere. You need a therapist, whom we should see together, and we need to work on all of this, both of us, and that's the last I'm going to say about this tonight, because I, too, am 'knackered,' as you like to say.

"Now let's get some sleep. Oh, and Happy New Year." She snuggled even closer to him and closed her eyes.

Cam, who was really feeling the effects of his sleeping pill by now, gave up, gave in to sleep, and finally did what he'd been longing to do and put his arm around his girl as he closed his eyes. 

"We're not finished talking about this," he murmured, giving her a squeeze.

"Whatever."

"What was the second thing? My second mistake?"

"Hm? Oh. You shouldn't have called me penguin."