The In-Law Initiation, Nebraska

Well, I guess you could call this the sequel to The In-Law Initiation from last year. That was about Leonard going home, and bringing Penny with him. This is about Penny going home, and bringing Leonard with her. Hokie3457 deserves major kudos and thanks for reading through this for me. This is set about eight episodes into season seven, a week or two after The Romance Resonance.

They had stopped for lunch, just west of Lincoln. After lunch, Penny had started driving, as Leonard thought it would be easier, since she knew the route to her parents house. There was one problem, which Leonard fixed by leaning his seat back a bit and telling Penny he was trying to take a nap. In reality, he found it easier to ride with Penny with his eyes closed, and claiming to nap gave him an excuse to close his eyes.

Besides, thought Leonard, there wasn't anything to see. Since they entered Nebraska, and started driving on interstate 80, there had been nothing but empty fields. Penny told him that these fields would have been filled with corn. But this time of year, as she explained, the crops were all in and the fields would lay fallow until the spring.

Maybe we should have flown, thought Leonard. No, it's been fun, and except for the flat terrain here, the scenery has been nice. It was a fun, going through the mountains and the Eisenhower Tunnel. We got to drive through Denver and on the way back, we'll go through Salt Lake City and maybe even stop in Vegas for a couple of days.

Leonard felt both the car slowing, and a slight shift in direction. Opening his eyes, he saw Penny was exiting the interstate. "Where are we going, Penny?" he asked.

"Well," she said, "I figure with the noon traffic, and all the trucks, downtown is going to be a bitch to get through. So, I decided to come in the sorta back way. The first part is four lane, and so it will be about the same. As we get closer to the house it will drop to two lanes, but without all of the heavy traffic."

"OK," said Leonard, "you know your way around here, and I don't, so go with it." He leaned back and closed his eyes. "I'm going back to sleep, wake me up when we get closer."

Penny smiled, "Oh, I will. I'll probably wake you when we cross the Platte River, it'll give you a chance to be fully awake when we get to the house."

Leonard opened his left eye and said, "Whatever you think best." He closed his eye, and a few minutes later drifted off to sleep.

Leonard felt a hand shaking him, so he slowly opened his eyes. The bright sunlight forced him to close them again. "Where are we?" he said.

"Crossing the bridge over the Platte River," said Penny. "We're about 20 minutes from the house."

Leonard grinned at her, "Is there going to be anything more interesting than empty fields on the way?"

Penny stuck out her tongue at him, "Yes, two small towns. One of which has my high school. So be quiet and watch the scenery go by."

Penny drove for about five minutes and as the road curved to the left, she pointed toward Leonard's side of the car. "Over there is the town of Valley," said Penny.

"How big?" said Leonard.

"Used to be around 1500 people," said Penny. "I don't know how big it is now."

As they drove along, small homes and barns would appear. Penny said, "You see all these small farms?"

Leonard nodded.

"They all look a lot like our house and barns," said Penny. "And, like these, our fields are behind the barns. We do have power lines running through our fields."

They had passed several roads to either the left or right, or both, but hadn't had to stop. Finally they came to a stop sign. Ahead of them, the road turned into a dirt road. Penny turned right. After a few more miles, the fields on the right gave way to what appeared to be individual homes, but in between the homes, were fields with hay balls.

Leonard said, "Why are there fields between houses?"

"They're starting to create little subdivisions out of the fields," Penny said. "But, until they fill in the houses to some point, they still use them as fields.

As they passed a lake, it looked like there were various islands with houses built on them. Penny explained, "Some developer bought the lake and the land around it, and they filled in part of it, so they could build the houses."

Suddenly Penny got excited and pointed to the right, "Leonard, over there, see that road?"

They were approaching an intersection with a dirt road. Leonard didn't see anything to be excited about but said, "Yeah, what about it?"

"My high school is down that road," said Penny.

Leonard now understanding her excitement said, "Will I get to see it?"

"Yeah," said Penny as she turned the wheel to follow as the road turned to the right, "I take you there, although my mom says it really doesn't look like it used to." Penny now pointed to the right again and Leonard could see houses and some small businesses.

"That's Bennington," said Penny. "That's the closest town to our house. Of course, parts of Omaha aren't much further away. If we needed something quick, we'd go here. If we needed a bigger selection or lower price, we went to Omaha."

About thirty seconds later, as they were going under the high tension power lines, Penny pointed to the left. "See that house, the red barn and the other buildings," asked Penny.

"Yeah?"

"That's home," said Penny with a smile.

As Penny approached the next intersection, one of the few cars they had seen was coming from the other direction and she had to wait to turn. Waiting for the other car allowed Leonard to look at the street sign, "Perkins Street". "What, no dirt road?" said Leonard with a smirk.

"Shut up," said Penny. "There are some larger farms south and north of here, so this road was paved. We basically got it for free."

Leonard watched as the house and barn came closer. He saw two short silos, and a couple of fenced off areas, with several lean-tos. Penny turned left into the driveway, rolling past a green mailbox, the numbers 12813 on it, and, what looked to Leonard like a large metal garage, the silos were behind it, and she pulled to a stop between a house and a red barn. Leonard noted the house was white with dark blue shutters and he could see a satellite dish in the front of the house.

"Well," said Penny, "We're here. You ready to meet my mom and dad?"

"I met your dad already," he reminded her. "But I am nervous about meeting your mom."

Penny laughed, "My mom is probably nervous about meeting you and worried about you finding out things about our family."

"What things?" asked Leonard.

"Oh," said Penny, "Just things. My mom thinks we're the worst family ever in the world. She doesn't really know how bad things could be."

Leonard and Penny got out of the car, Lenard was waiting for Penny to get to his side of the car, when the door of the house opened. Coming out was Wyatt, striding toward Leonard. He appeared to be a bit grayer, and have a bit less hair then a few years before. "Leonard, it's so good to see you again," he said grabbing and vigorously shanking Leonard's hand.

Penny came around, "Hi daddy," she said.

Wyatt let go of Leonard's hand and engulfed his daughter in a hug. "It's so good to see you slugger," he said. "I've missed you."

"I missed you too, daddy," said Penny. "Where's mom?"

"Susan," shouted Wyatt, "The kids are here. C'mon out."

Leonard turned to see an attractive woman come out of the door. She had on dress that came below her knees, her hair was dark brown and came down below her shoulders. As she approached, he could see her eyes and realized where Penny got her green eyes from, although there was some brown in her eye as well. Call them hazel thought Leonard. He also noticed she was taller than Penny.

Penny and her mother hugged, and he could hear Penny say "It's so good to see you mom".

"It's good to have you home again," Susan replied.

They hugged for a few moments, and finally Penny broke the hug and turned to Leonard. "Mom, I want you to meet my boyfriend, Leonard."

Susan took a step forward, hugging him. "Leonard, it's so good to finally meet you." Susan broke the hug, and took a step back, looking at him. "Penny has told us so much about you and I know you know Wyatt likes you."

"Thank you Mrs…"

"Just call me Susan," she said. "We don't need all that formality with someone we like and know so much about."

Leonard nodded.

Wyatt clapped Leonard on the back and said, "How about we get your luggage in, then we can all sit around and catch up. Have a beer or two or three."

"Bob," Susan said sharply, "One beer will be enough."

Turning to Leonard, Wyatt said, "She's always worrying about how much I drink. Come on son, let's get the luggage."

Penny and Susan turned, walking into the house. Leonard and Wyatt went to the trunk, to get their bags. As they were unloading, Wyatt asked, "What do you think of the farm."

"I don't know, Wyatt," said Leonard. "I've never been around a farm, but it will be interesting to look around and have Penny or you tell me about it.

They were carrying the bags in, when Wyatt said, "Either or both of us will get to showing you around a bit later. I'll show you some of the things we do around here, maybe let you work some things yourself. C'mon, lets get these upstairs." Both of them, each carrying two bags, entered the house.

A/N I Just want to point out that I finished "The Chew Toy Revelations" three years ago today. It was my first published work, so since it was close, I waited until today to publish this story. There is a real farm at that particular address and the description of the farm, in later chapters, is quite accurate. However, the farm is not on Perkins Street, the street Penny grew up on, I just renamed it for the story.