Chapter 2

A/N I really mess up with the first author's note, I forgot to than hokie3457, Jenafan, and Zhalen565 for looking it over for errors and those other things I worry about. So, thanks to all three of you.

Leonard was carrying another box to what would be his office when he felt his phone buzzing again. He put the box down, reached into his back pocket for his phone, and looked at the screen. He chuckled as he saw the name. Scrolling down, he counted, 11 messages, 9 voicemails, Sheldon much be in a panic he thought.

Leaving his office, he walked over to the kitchen. Penny was standing by the sink, looking out of the window at the mountains. He said, "We're never going to get this done if you keep looking out of the window, instead of unpacking."

Penny turned to look at him and smiled, "I know, but the view is so great. What's up?"

He grinned at her, "I got another message from Sheldon"

"How many does that make?"

Leonard said, "Eleven texts, nine voicemails."

"You got me beat," chuckled Penny as she took her phone out of her pocket, "I've only got eight texts and two voicemails from Amy."

"I got couple of texts and one voicemail, from Howard."

"I have four texts from Bernadette, and a couple of voicemails," said Penny, "I win there". Penny's smile turned serious. "Leonard?" Penny said questioningly.

"Yes?"

"Did we do the right thing?" Penny said.

"Yes, we did," Leonard said with conviction. He paused, putting his hand on her arm, "You know how things go with you and Sheldon. You caved in on the table, you caved in on moving out. At least this way…"

"No, no, you were right," Penny said. "Doing it the way we did was the only way we were going to get away from him, because he's like a brother to me and I feel sorry for him and don't want him sad, so I cave."

"Remember when I told you crazy looks like sad, so it will suck you back in?" ask Leonard.

"Yes, and like the table or moving, I caved to him, you caved to me," said Penny, with a stern look at Leonard. "So, yeah, I understand why we had to do it this way. What I meant was, did we do the right thing buying this house?"

Leonard rubbed her arm. "Of course we did. Do you remember what your 'guy' said."

Penny smiled, "He's OUR guy now."

Leonard was also grinning. "Yes, I know. But remember what Bob said when we asked? This will help us on our taxes, and with your income, we need something."

"But why four bedrooms?"

"You know why, we've talk about it," said Leonard patiently. "We'll each have our own office and it give us a guest room, we have an extra bed, probably yours, for that." Leonard appeared embarrassed, and looked down. "And, if we ever decide to have kids…"

Penny smiled, "Remember, when we talked about being more mature. Just because Bernadette is pregnant, doesn't mean I'm going to follow her any time soon."

He smiled thinking about the Harry Potter face they had drawn on Sheldon's face when he was passed out on the couch, "Yes, I suppose we ho have to mature a bit more. But, do you really want to wait? After all, you're old now, right Ma'am"

"Shut up."

Leonard chuckled, "We have plenty of time, we've only been married for six months. Howard and Bernadette waited for three years after they got married. Let's see, you're three years younger than Bernadette, so if we wait for three years, you'll still be the same age as her, when you have your first. And if we wait longer, so what?"

Penny looked thoughtful, "Yeah, OK, you're right." Then looked sideways at him, "First?"

"Well," Leonard said hurriedly, "if we want more than one. We'll have to talk about that, I supp…"

"I was playing with you," said Penny with a grin. "Someday, we'll have a use for those other bedrooms, besides as offices."

"Speaking of which," said Leonard, "except for our bedroom, and what I'll call the guest room, we need more furniture for the bedrooms"

Penny looked around. "Not just the bedrooms, the living room, dining room, family room. This is going to cost us Leonard."

"I know," he nodded. "We can add pieces here and there. A desk for you, more bookshelves for me, another couch, some tables, bookcases, and display cases for the living room, another TV. We don't need it right away, but well get them." He gave her a grin, "You get to decorate a whole house."

Penny's eyes lit up, on hearing that. "Oh, yeah, curtains, pictures, matching them with the furniture, getting some throw rugs. Oh this is going to be fun." Then she turned serious, "Will we be able to afford this? I mean we've got this huge mortgage now."

"Well, according to Bob, yes, we can," Leonard said. "Remember, we were paying $2200 for rent, between us. This is only $300 more. We only have one electric and water bill now, although you are helping to pay the cable and internet now. You want to set the password now, you know, something like Pennygetyourownwifi?"

He looked a Penny with a grin, who playfully stuck her tongue out at him. He continued, "Also, this was such a great deal on the house, because this was a foreclosure. We got this for $400,000 less than it's worth. So even though we had to take a bunch out of savings, the value of the house more than makes up for it."

"Yeah, I guess," said Penny. "It's just I'm not used to having all this money. When my boss started asking me questions about what I wanted to do with my drawing account, and I didn't have an answer, he suggested Bob. I struggled for so long and while I wanted to be able to spend some money. I also wanted make sure I never went back to feeling like that."

"Even though you had to give up on acting?" asked Leonard.

Penny looked thoughtful, "I sometimes regret giving up my acting dreams, but overall, I think things have worked out pretty well for me." She smiled at Leonard.

"I understand," said Leonard. "As for me and my money, yeah, except for my geeky stuff, and my student loans. I didn't really spend a lot of money either."

"I told you I can help pay them off."

"Yes," said Leonard, "but Bob said they are low interest, so we can just keep paying on them, and we both trust Bob, right?"

Penny nodded.

"Just remember, he recommended this," said Leonard. "so yeah, I think were good." They heard the tones from the phones at the same time, with both of them looking at their own.

"Another one from Sheldon," said Leonard.

"I got one from Amy," said Penny. "Don't you think we should tell them where were at?"

"I don't know," said Leonard, "I'm enjoying the quiet." His face became serious, as he thought about it, finally, he sighed, "I suppose we should let them know. I can imagine Sheldon is going nuts, and it's not fair to them. They do care about us, like we care about them." He thought for a few seconds more, "Why don't we do this, you text or call Amy and Bernadette and let her know were fine, that we will have them over tomorrow, and you'll give them the address tomorrow afternoon?"

Penny look puzzled, "Why then?"

"I don't want them to show up until were ready to talk to them."

Penny nodded, "That sounds good."

"You want to stop here, and go get some lunch?"

"Sure," said Penny, "let me get my purse."

Penny walked into the dining room, where her purse was on the table. Man, my table looks so small in this area. But as Leonard said, we'll get some new furniture. Grabbing her purse, she headed toward the front door. Leonard was pressing some numbers on the pad of their security system.

"Hey," said Leonard, "you want to learn how to do this? You're going to have to know how, if I'm not home."

Penny rolled her eyes, "OK, what do I do?"

"Whenever you leave," Leonard explained, pointing out each item, "you enter the code, then push the 'arm' button. Then you look at the display. If the words 'System Armed' appear in the display, and the green light is on, the security system is on. If the light is orange, and there is nothing on the display, it's off and you have to retry."

"Oh, I got this," said Penny. Pushing past Leonard, she entered four numbers, then hit 'arm'. The light stayed orange and nothing changed on the display.

Leonard grinned, "Did you enter the right number in?"

"Your birthday, right?" ask Penny. "All your codes are your birthday, right?"

Leonard looked at her over his glasses, and said softly, "Did you forget my birthday again?"

"No, I had it right, I know I did. I don't understand…"

Leonard chuckled, "Actually, since it's our code, I thought I'd make is something both of us could remember."

"You mean you didn't tell me the code and let me think I knew it?" said Penny indignantly.

"Well, you didn't ask," said Leonard with a grin.

"So, what's the code." she demanded

Leonard was still grinning, "Like I said, something we both could remember, it's 2311."

Penny smiled. "OK, I'll give you that one." She started toward the panel, but Leonard stopped her.

"If you are coming in," continued Leoanrd, "you enter the number, press the 'arm' button. If the light turns orange, and the display is blank, then the system is off. Just remember, you have 30 seconds to get out after you set it, otherwise, the alarm goes off and the security company calls the police. Same thing when you come back in. Thirty-seconds to enter the code and turn it off, before the alarm goes off and the security company calls the police. So, if you don't get it right the first time, you have to hurry to retry it."

Penny put in 2311, pushed the 'arm' button and a second later, the light turned green and the words 'System Armed' appeared on the display.

"Let's go," said Leonard, as they headed out the door, closing and locking it as they went.

************************************TRD*********************************

Returning from lunch, an hour later, they pulled back into their driveway. Driving back to the house, Leonard had seen various people at their mailboxes and realized the mail must have been delivered while they were gone.

Leonard said, "How about you drop the empty cups in our garbage, and I'll go check if we got mail?"

"Why would we have mail?"

Leonard explained, "I changed it over on Thursday. We should get some here, but we still have to check at the apartments for a couple of weeks, in case it get delivered over there."

"Ok, I'll meet you at the mailbox then."

Leonard headed down the driveway to the mailbox, which was just on the other side of the hedge separating their house from their neighbors . Penny walked to the garbage can, dropped the cups in and started walking toward the mailbox. Penny had gotten about half way to the mailbox when she heard a women say in a loud voice, "Leonard, oh my god."

Penny continued quickly down the driveway, and peered around the hedge. Her jaw dropped, seeing the woman hugging Leonard. Penny was getting ready to walk out, when they broke the hug. Seeing Leonard with a confused look on his face, Penny decided to watch and wait.

Leonard said, haltingly, "Er…how…er…have you been?"

"I've been great," the woman said, "I got married about five years ago."

"That's wonderful," said Leonard.

Penny almost laughed at the very obvious confusion on Leonard's face. Penny looked at the woman, Penny judged her to be very attractive about Penny's age, maybe a bit older, slim, not quite as slim as Penny, but close.

"How about you?" the woman asked. "I see you bought the Rennell's house. When did you move in here? It must have been recently, as the sign is still up. Did you get married?"

Leonard was trying to think of an answer, while he kept trying to remember where he knew this woman from. She looked and sounded familiar, but he couldn't place her. He said, "We got married about six months ago, we just moved in yesterday, but we closed on the house on Thursday. Er…who…ahhhh…so…ah, you've been married for five years?"

Penny was amused, but curious as to who this woman was. She could almost see the wheels turning in Leonard's head, trying to figure out who this was.

The woman said, "Yep, we even have two kids now."

"Really? I'm happy for you. So…what are you doing now?" Leonard said, hoping this woman would say something that would give him a clue to her identity.

Well, I'm at the San Gabriel Medical Center. I went there after I finished my resi…"

Penny was able to hold in her gasp when she heard Leonard say, "Stephanie?"

A/N I looked into prices for homes, and foreclosures, along with rents in Pasadena. The discussion of the payments that Lenny made for rent, along with the cost of their house are pretty realistic.