Hey, here's the next chapter at least. I'm sorry this one is as well still part of the introduction of the story. I'm still debating if I should make this a story shipping Sheldon and Penny or not (though I kind of feel it's going to end at it anyway), so I chose neutral territory, since I have nothing against Leonard other than not like him being with Penny (same thing you can say for Amy, as lovely as she may be I don' like to relate her relationship with Sheldon as 'shame', the contraction 'Shamy' just don't fit), I'm not going to treat him/her bad, but they're not going to have huge contributions to the story development, this chapter is basically so you can picture the main characters with no strings attached.
Thanks for your reviews, by the way, please keep sending your suggestions on what you would like me to write for Penny's adventure as Sheldon's apprentice, not that I lack ideas, but I like to widen my horizons and different points of view always make things unpredictable. A friendly reminder that this is just fanatic fiction, written from my point of view and my humble opinion, nothing but that. Enjoy, read and don't hesitate to leave a comment!
4.- The office
It was late in the evening the next day when Penny parked her car at CalTech, the sun outside almost blinded her when she tried to look up at the building. She wasn't really sure where Sheldon's new office was. So she walked towards the building and took her phone from her jeans pocket, she strolled down her contact list and touched Sheldon's contact to make a call.
"*Doctor Sheldon Cooper talking*"
"Sheldon! Hey, I don't know where to find you; can you tell me how to get to your office?"
"*And good evening to you too. Of course I can tell you how to get here, but I would prefer if you could wait for me at the cafeteria instead.*" Penny rolled her eyes at his friend's 'usual' behavior.
"Sure, why?"
"*It'll make it easier to go to 'my office' from there, I'll go get you.*"
"Ah… right. " Penny thought that was weird, he could have just told her where to go, she could find his office, why would he need to go and get her? Anyway, she walked towards the school's cafeteria; the classes had ended a while ago, so there were just a few students and teachers around, so she thought the cafeteria was going to be empty.
Of course she was wrong, she shouldn't be that surprised, Leonard, Howard and Raj were at one of the tables with their computers and some papers, chatting animatedly, she had no trouble at all with the guys, but she was afraid of ruining everything by telling them something about her new discovered condition as a witch, and she had no actual ideas as what to say if they asked her what she was doing there, she was about to turn around and see if she could catch Sheldon outside.
"Penny? Hey Penny!" She should know better than underestimate Howard Wollowitz, she slowly looked up at them as in surprise. "What are you doing here? It's really weird to see you here." She put on her best smile and approached them.
"Hello guys! You seem very busy." She said looking at all the papers with complicated equations, diagrams and notes.
"We're working on a new robot" said Raj smiling widely at her, and showing her some models on the screen of his computer.
"Yeah, it's that time of the year again and we really want to give it a try, you know, since last time we didn't make it to the competition" said Leonard a bit more serious.
"Oh, yes, your robot… thingy, that tried to kill me" said Penny feeling a bit nervous at the prospect of another robot, at least this time the 'killing machine' was not built yet" But that was years ago, I thought you were not going to make one again.
"Not. At the apartment, we learned our lesson," said Howard opening his arms, as if to assure her they were going to work only at CalTech "and besides, this time Sheldon is not helping us, so the chances of our robot getting at least to the tournament this time are higher." She smiled unconvinced.
"But you haven't told us" said Raj looking at a piece of paper and to his computer comparing notes " What bring you here today?
"Uh… Well, Sheldon called me, he said you were … uhm…" she stammered trying to think of a good reason.
"… going to be busy working on your robot," Penny jumped at the sudden interruption, and turned to see Sheldon in his usual attire and carrying his messenger bag " I need to run some errands, and since I don't know how long it will take you to finish, I asked her to give me a ride."
"Very thoughtful of you. Thank you Penny, don't let him drive you crazy" said Leonard nodding at his friends.
She and Sheldon turned around and out of the cafeteria; she followed him for a minute before asking. " Don't you think Leonard is acting weird lately? He's less animated than usual."
"Yes, I've noticed too. But he always changes his mood after a breakup, I think this time he opted for the 'silent retreat'. Of course this time was not like the others as you two agreed that nothing good was happening with your relationship and needed a break, although I still don't know why if you're only being apart from each other for a while counts as a break up."
"It's complicated" said Penny feeling a bit hurt herself, she was happy with Leonard, really, but somehow their relationship was getting boring, and predictable, so one night after a row about who was going to start the fighting that time, and actually predicting their next move made them realize that they needed time to find out why they were still with each other, was it really love or was it just that they were used to be together? "It's not really a break up until we call time up again and talk about what we really want."
"None sense. You should have asked me to write a relationship agreement, it solves things like this, Amy and I never had this kind of problems, and when we decided that our relationship was not really moving forward we just signed the termination of the agreement and everyone was happy." Penny bit her tongue, she knew how hard it had been for Amy to pretend that she was fine with the way things ended between them, but she wasn't going to tell him about it. Sheldon stopped then and she looked around, for a moment not really sure of where they were. " Sheldon. Where are we?"
They were still at CalTech, they hadn't walked outside, but the narrow corridor they were currently in was full of boxes and faulty chairs, she supposed it was the basement or something like that. Sheldon didn't respond, instead taking out a set of keys and opening the door to a tiny room with a foldable table, a chair and a blackboard with a 43 written on it.
"Come in Penny" he said stepping inside the little room, she entered and closed the door behind her. She was about to repeat her previous question when Sheldon handed her his messenger bag, she took it and watched while Sheldon took out an antibacterial wipe and used it to erase the number on the blackboard.
A tingling sensation surrounded her, when what looked like one of those portals to different dimensions in cartoons appeared in front of them.
"I wanted to make it look like the one on Star Gate, but this one proved to be useful enough. I used it once to scare Howard and Raj" he said smiling at the 'portal'. " Come on, I want to show you the place" he said graving her elbow and maneuvering her into it.
Penny closed her eyes and prepared herself to fall down or even to be transported like at the Flu Network, but she just gave a small step and opened one eye to see where she was. Sheldon stepped in behind her, almost making her fall by bumping into her.
"You must stop doing that Penny. I will never push you into an unsafe place before making sure you can handle it." Penny opened her mouth to protest, but it died away as she took in the new room they were at. It was almost as big as his apartment, but it had the most interesting and weird looking objects, all of them in perfect order over special shelves around the room, he had a single desk and a work table in one corner, a huge bookshelf occupied an entire wall, and there was a window with the most amazing view she had ever seen, it actually looked as if they were on top of a mountain and the horizon showed other green mountains below, the picks covered in snow, a light fog surrounding the higher areas of trees and what seemed like the sun rising in the background, a very similar fireplace to the one they had used the day before was in the opposite wall, and Penny suspected it was the same one.
"Unbelievable!"
"As you can see there's plenty of space here for you to practice what ever I teach you. There's a reading area and the books are available for you to read while you are here so you would be able to consult them if you ever have doubts." He smiled at her, watching how exited she was, she had ran towards the window, and after a good look at it she hurried to see the titles of the many books and then to see the objects he had in the shelves, it made him feel proud, as he had never showed this place to anybody, other than the usual guest he invited to see his findings.
"I love this place!" Said Penny once she had looked at everything she could in the room.
"Good." He said simply, his smile being more expressive than him. A low 'ding' sounded somewhere behind Penny, and Sheldon walked in the direction of the bookshelf, where a small blue box stood, a little light flashing on the top. He tapped the light with his finger twice and the blue box opened, from inside it Sheldon took an envelope.
"I thought the mail was delivered by owls" she said while Sheldon opened the letter.
"It is, but as I informed you before I'm not fond of birds, so I developed my own mail delivering system, it's faster and I don't have to deal with feathers, annoying noises or stubborn owls. By the way this is the letter that officially makes you my apprentice; it also has a recommended book list, and the information about the vault to ask for the money to buy it." Sheldon looked at her, his expression changing to a deep in thought one "So I think we need to go shopping; we actually have to run some errands now, and I'll have to make some changes to this list."