A/N Again, the directions are accurate. I want to thank everyone for reading. Hokie, Zhalen, Desdemona thanks for reading the chapters over, all comments were helpful. This one ran a bit longer than the others, but not long enough to split.
Chapter 7
Leonard was breathing heavily, as he pulled out his inhaler, took two breaths deep breaths, as he sprayed the medicine into his mouth. He held up his hand, asking for some time and after taking several more deep breaths and still sounding out of breath said, "I'm sorry Penny… that was my mother…I just wanted to show you… where her office was… I didn't expect to see her and… I really didn't want to interact with her…."
Penny put her arm around Leonard, looked back, and seeing the trees blocking her view of the window said, "Well, calm down, she can't see us from here," said Penny.
They slowly started walking back to their car, when suddenly Leonard's phone rang. Leonard looked at it, and Penny heard him mutter, "Dammit."
He took several more deep breaths before answering the phone, "Hello, mother."
Leonard listened and said, "Why would you say that?"
Another pause, and then a disgusted sounding, "Of course he did. We're staying at the house…yes we, Penny and I. Didn't he tell you that also?" the last said in a very sarcastic tone.
Another pause, "What do you want mother? No, we're not on campus." At that, Penny looked at Leonard strangely.
Looking at her, he shook his head…"Well, I'm heading back to the house, I've got to sign some papers. Yes, it has to do with father, and I'm not at liberty to tell you. Ask him yourself, if you're that interested. Yes, we're leaving as soon as I'm done today, probably in about two to three hours Yes,…yes,… yes mother, next time I'll stop and see you. Yes,…yes,…goodbye to you too, mother." He ended the call.
"Your mother called you?" asked Penny.
"Yeah, she saw us," said Leonard. "She called to ask if it was me. Sheldon told her I'd be here, but I guess he missed telling her about you. Anyway, she tried to get me to tell her what I was doing here, but I told her to talk to my dad."
"I see you lied to her."
"Yep," said Leonard. "I've had plenty of practice and as long as I'm not with her physically, I can do it. I just collapse when I'm actually around her. I didn't want to get into it with her. What I'm doing with my dad is up to him to explain to her. It's his business, not hers. Anyway, like I said, I just wanted you to see where her office is.' She'll be moving in a couple of years. They are building a whole new neuroscience building, by that walkway we drove under. Ironically, it will, like those two buildings, just across the street from the Physics buildings."
They had arrived at their car and both got in. "Are we heading back?" asked Penny.
"No, we got one more place to stop," said Leonard. "It's somewhere I stop every time I come home. It's really kind of shrine for me."
"OK," said Penny, "lead on."
They backtracked on the road they had come in on, the football field on their left now. Pulling up to the main road, under the elevated walkway, Leonard turned right. They drove past the Physics building, then the math building.
They passed many more old looking buildings. Many of them reminded Penny of they same style of older buildings in Europe. But, mixed in with those old buildings, were newer buildings. It was an interesting mix. Coming to a light, Leonard turned left. He drove a short distance, houses now on either side of the road and turned left again, this road angled off of the main road. After passing several streets, Leonard pulled to the side and shut the car off. "See that?" he said, pointing across the street.
Penny looked over to where he pointed. It was a two story house, with an elevated front porch, five steps led up to it from the front walkway. Four wood pillars rose from the porch, holding up the outside wall of the second floor. All of the windows had shutters on each side of the window. The shutters, and the front door were a blue-black color. There was a gate, with a short hedge on either side of the gate, running the length of the property. On the gate was a sign, "Private Residence".
"What is this, Leonard?" asked Penny.
Leonard looked a little overcome. "This…this…house, is where Albert Einstein lived, from 1935 until his death in 1955. He bought it after getting run out of Germany, because of Hitler. "
Penny felt awe, realizing what they both were looking at. "Einstein? The E equals mc…something guy?"
"Yep," said Leonard. "He had an office at Princeton for a while, then, after it was built, he moved over to The Institute for Advanced Studies. They basically built that institution for him to work on his theories. But here is where he lived."
Penny could hear the respectful tone in his voice. "Have you ever been in the house?"
"No," said Leonard. "It's been a private residence since it was sold by his daughter in 1986. Actually, it's owned by the Institute. But, of course, many physicists know of it and many, like me, come by, just to look at it. I started coming here when I got involved in Physics, when I was in high school."
"I have been in his office at the Institute," said Leonard. "After he died, the office has been given to some of the most brilliant physicists of the time. I was with my doctoral advisor when he went to see a friend of his, who had his office. Although Einstein was no longer there, just the fact I was standing in the same office as he had worked, made me nervous. I wasn't sure I deserved to be there."
Penny nodded. She could see this was affecting Leonard deeply, so she stayed quiet. After a few minutes, he turned back to the front, and started the car. "OK, now we can go back, sorry for the delay."
Penny smiled at him, "No, I think I get it. It's probably like me finding a big star's house in LA. "
He nodded and started forward. He made a left at the next street, and after about ten minutes, Penny could see the restaurant where they had eaten breakfast that morning. And in about five more minutes, they were back at the house.
They came in and found Alfred at the dining room table, with a cup of coffee and papers laying in several neat piles on the table. He looked up, smiled and said, "Hi."
Leonard spoke up, "Dad, mother saw us, and she called me. She was asking about what I was doing here. I told her it was something to do with you and after she asked me, I told her she needed to talk to you about it."
Alfred sighed, "Well, I can't say I didn't expect it. She seemed to know you were coming the last time we yelled at each other. Why did she call you?"
Leonard looked embarrassed, "I took Penny to Princeton, to show her the physics area. Since mom's office was right across the street, I thought I'd show Penny where it was. I didn't expect mother to be looking out and see us."
Alfred shrugged his shoulders, "Nothing to worry about really. These are all academic things, so it doesn't really concern her. Don't worry about it."
"OK," said Leonard. "I have to go get ready to head to the lawyers." He leaned over, gave Penny a kiss and said, "I hope you enjoyed the little tour."
"Yeah, I did, I really liked the restaurant." She smiled at him, "But I get why the other place affects you so much."
Leonard smiled back, nodded, and headed off. Penny looked at the table and said, "What is all this, Alfred?"
"Just something I've putting together for my next presentation," he said. "I'm putting the illustrations in, among the explanations and data, for each section."
"Do you need any help?"
"Sure," he said. "That pile, the one near you is a bit far from me, but it has all the images, so if you could hand me a page when I ask for it, it will be helpful."
"OK," she said, "Hold on, let me get some water, and I'll help."
Penny went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water and came back and sat down. After handing Alfred about three pages, Leonard came through, getting ready to leave. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Helping your dad put together his presentation," she said.
Leonard looked at her with a funny expression, "OK, well I'll be back in a bit. Remember, we'll be leaving just after I get back, so we can be at the hotel tonight."
"How long will you be?"
"We'll, it's a half hour drive," said Leonard, "so it's an hour there and back. I guess about an hour there, so call it two hours, somewhere around 2:30 to 3:00, I would think."
"I'll be ready," said Penny. "I've only got two or three items to pack, so when your dad is done, I'll go finish our packing."
"That's good," said Leonard. Leaning over, he kissed her, and left.
Alfred and Penny continued to put his presentation together, and after another half hour, they finally got it done. Alfred then took each section and put the different piles together, into one big pile, and said, "Thank you for your help Penny, I appreciate it. It would have taken me quite a bit longer."
"Your welcome, Alfred," said Penny, starting to get up.
"Hehehehehe," said Alfred, shaking his head.
Penny smiled and asked, "What?"
Alfred smiled at her and said, "I can't get over how much like Allison you are."
"We do look a lot alike."
"Not just that," said Alfred, "but, your personalities are very similar."
"And some of our experiences," said Penny. "Like, you got her to go to school. Leonard tried, but it made me mad, his thinking that I wasn't smart enough for him." Alfred laughed. "Ally believed I thought the same about her. In reality, it was her who thought she wasn't smart enough. I thought no such thing, of course. I simply came up with the idea that if she went to school, she wouldn't feel inferior. Fortunately, she didn't get mad at me, so I could explain to her. Really, I like her just the way she is."
Penny thought back and realized, Leonard had been simply trying to ease her worry. That was less than a year after they met, did Alfred know?
"Alfred," Penny tilted her head, and said, "can I ask you something."
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"What did Leonard tell you about me?" Penny asked.
"Let's see," said Alfred, thinking back. "I guess I knew about you almost immediately. He had mentioned that his new neighbor was a beautiful woman. He talked about you in the emails I got. Penny did this, Penny did that. Penny helped me with this, or she did something for me. He said he asked you out, and you had said yes, but then I didn't hear anything about it."
"We went out," said Penny. "But I was worried, he's so smart, and I'm not. I didn't give him a chance to explain, like you say Allison did. So, we didn't go out again. I hate to admit it, but also, there was a nagging fear I had. Leonard wasn't like the guys I usually went out with. They were usually tall, with money, usually really good looking…not that Leonard isn't good looking. I kinda like the wave in his hair, and with his glasses of, he's got a rugged handsomeness…" Penny trailed off, thinking of Leonard. She suddenly realized she was speaking with Alfred, and continued.
"The thing was, the other guys always treated me bad, in some way. Either they would cheat on me, or just take off. There was even one guy who wrote about our sex life on the internet. Or, they just wouldn't do things to help me, unless I would do something for them. But Leonard…Leonard…he was different. He genuinely cared for me. Even if I was going out with someone else he was always willing to help me. Even when I was going out with other guys, I knew I could count on him. I somehow knew that."
"Over the year afterward, I came to realize this," said Penny. "I went out with several different guys, but they didn't measure up. He also dated a couple of women, one even moved into his apartment. All of it made me realize what he meant to me. So, when he came back from the North Pole, I let him know how I felt."
"Well," said Alfred, "you must have made some kind of impression on him." "He was always talking about things you would do for him. Something about changing his way of dressing, trying to get him to be more outgoing. I heard you threw him a birthday party?"
"Yeah, I did," said Penny smiling. "I heard he never had one, so I, and his friends put one together. The problem was he was late getting to the party, so he missed it."
"Well, you have certainly have gotten him to change," said Alfred. "He dresses better. He seems to have more confidence. He didn't look down at me, as he used to, when we first started talking, he looked me in the eyes when he questioned me. It looks to me that you genuinely care for him also. So, I think you have been good for him."
Penny blushed and looked down, but she was thinking now. Do I really do that for him? Do I really care for him? This seemed to catch her by surprise, but she said, "I guess we've been good for each other."
"Just like Allison and I have been good for each other," said Alfred. "She's working to get me over the rather bad marriage I had. And, she says I've allowed her to trust again. There are things we are still working on, but overall, it's been good for us. We just managed to work through a rather rough patch over the last month."
"What happened?"
"She told me she loved me," he said, "and I couldn't say it back."
Penny looked intently at Alfred. "How did you work through that?"
"We talked," said Alfred. "I was mortified as I didn't expect it. I had trouble with my marriage for a while now, and I didn't think that anyone would say such a thing to me. Although I guess how close we had become should have given me a hint. I was quite flummoxed. All that came out was, 'That's nice.' How silly is that?"
"I tried to play it off as a joke," said Alfred, " but I could see the disappointment on Ally's face. We just kind of skipped over it the rest of the night, just let it lie there. The next day, I explained to her how much I cared for her, but I just couldn't say that yet. It didn't mean I didn't have strong feelings for her, but…love, love was just something I wasn't sure I could say."
"She was upset, I really didn't blame her, so we talked some more, and decided we wouldn't worry about it, for now. We would revisit it in a couple of months. She asked if there was anything she could do to help. I told her there was nothing she could do. It was something I had to work through. And, I didn't want to lead her on, if it turned out, after a couple of months, I still couldn't say it. We would look at it some more.
If I decided, at some point, I wasn't ever going to be able to tell her, we could both move on. But, neither of us wanted to make a rash decision, and end up breaking up, when, if we gave it some time, we might be able to work through it. She was kind enough to say she would give me time."
"One problem we ran into," said Alfred, "was talking to friends and their giving us advice. Don't say it, some said; back off from each other, some said; among other things. We finally decided we couldn't listen to anyone else, we needed to talk to each other. Work it out that way. Because listening to others could lead us falsely into something we didn't want."
Alfred looked thoughtful for a second, "Penny, can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what?"
"Has Leonard said it to you yet?"
"No," said Penny looking surprised, "Nothing like that. Why?"
"I just got that feeling," said Alfred. "Leonard tends to hang onto people who show him kindness. From his emails, from just watching you two together here, your looks at each other that communicate to each other, so well. With all that, I get the impression you two have strong feelings for each other?"
Penny paused, "Well, I haven't said it either. To be honest, I really haven't thought about it. Something like that is a major step in a relationship, and I've haven't had very good luck with it. The few times I've said it, something would happen with the guy. He would say I was pushing him, or he would break up with me, or he would just take off, or cheat.
"It may just be I'm not sure how to handle how things are going with Leonard. He's so good to me, and there are time when I just don't know what to do. It's not something I've been through before, someone being good to and for me. Basically, we've just been going along, working things out as we go. It's been rough at times, but I don't think were near the point of saying something like that yet."
"Well, I think you should think about it," said Alfred. "So it doesn't catch you by surprise, when either of you say it for the first time."
"No," said Penny, her voice sounding hard, "there is nothing to think about, at least from my end." Her voice softened, "I do care for him, very much, but thinking about saying 'I love you' …I don't know, I'm not ready for that yet, for either of us." She looked around nervously, got up and said, "I have to go get the rest of our stuff packed. Glad I could help you, Alfred."
Penny hurried out the door, heading for their room. Alfred watched her go, looking out the door Penny had gone through, looking thoughtful, shaking his head.
A half hour later, Penny had her back to the door, zipping up her suitcase, when Leonard came through, "Hey, you ready…"
Penny gave a shriek, as she turned around, her hand on her chest. "Leonard," she yelled, "are you trying to scare me to death?"
"No," said Leonard looking puzzled, "just seeing if you were ready."
"Well, I just finished," she said curtly.
"Hey, calm down," said Leonard, "I was just asking. What's wrong?"
"Nothing," said Penny with a sigh, "Do you have everything finished, everything signed?"
"Yeah, there may be a problem with one thing, but if there is, they will send it out to a lawyers office in Pasadena and I can resign it there. You sure you're OK?"
"Just a bit jumpy, you scared me."
"Why are you jumpy?" asked Leonard.
"I'm not really," she paused, "I guess I'm just sad we're leaving."
"Here let me have one of those," said Leonard. He grabbed one of the suitcases, walked out of the room and headed down the stairs, with Penny following with her suitcase. They took them out to the car, put them in the trunk, and after closing the lid, headed back into the house.
"Dad," yelled Leonard, "were getting ready to leave."
"I'll be right there," they heard Alfred answer.
Penny and Leonard waited in the kitchen, Leonard said, "You want a water?"
"Yeah," she said, "grab me one, to take along. We have what, an hour or so on the road?"
"Yeah, about an hour," said Leonard. "But, then we have to catch the shuttle over to our hotel, which will probably be another hour."
Alfred walked into the kitchen, "You all ready?"
Penny nodded looking away from Alfred, while Leonard said, "Yeah, the luggage is in the car, we've gotten a bottle of water, so we're leaving. It's only an hour to Hoboken, to drop off the car, but then we'll probably have to wait to catch the shuttle."
Alfred nodded and they all walked out of the house. Getting to the car, Alfred held out his hand toward Leonard, but Leonard turned it into a hug. They were slapping each others backs. After breaking, Penny walked to Alfred and gave him a hug. She broke it, quickly walking around to the other side of the car.
"Well, dad," said Leonard, "Take care, and let me know when you get those signed."
"I will," said Alfred. "Thank you so much for helping."
"Thank you for putting us up," said Leonard. "You need to come out to California."
"Yes," said Alfred, "I think I could do that now, but, as I said, it will be difficult this summer, maybe next year."
"Well, bye," said Leonard as he got into the car.
"By Alfred," said Penny, "it was so nice meeting you. I hope we can see you a bit more." She dropped her eyes, looking away from Alfred.
"I hope so," said Alfred. "It was wonderful meeting you Penny." Alfred paused, it seems as if he was going to say something else to her, but she wasn't looking at him, so he just said, "Bye".
Leonard said "Bye, dad." He started the car, and backed out of the driveway. As he pulled away, he could see his dad waving, and he gave a short wave through the window.
About 15 minutes later, they were on the turnpike, heading for Hoboken. Penny was deep in thought, Do I really have to think about where our relationship is going right now? We haven't been going out for even a year yet. And, worrying about saying I love you? I know I've said it too soon, and I don't want that to happen with Leonard. I'm just not ready for that yet, so why worry about it. When it happens, Leonard and I will deal with it like Alfred and Allison. We can talk about it, we won't listen to others, we can give each other time, we'll be able to work it out. But, we won't have to worry about that for a while yet.
She looked over at Leonard and smiled. "I can't wait to get to New York," she said.
"Me, either," said Leonard. "I hope you enjoy the shows we have lined up."
"Oh, I know I will," said Penny. I want to get some autographs from people. You won't mine me going to the stage door, to get them, will you?"
Leonard smiled, "No, I won't mind at all."
"Good, I'm going to take a nap," said Penny.
He looked over and nodded. She put the seat back down a bit, closed her eyes, and started thinking of what the next few days were going be like, visiting New York. It was about ten minutes later when she fell asleep.
End
A/N I'm working on the Leonard and Penny trip to Nebraska, plus another one shot. I've got some things in life that are interrupting, but I'll be back.
