The Bellagio Peregrination Chapter 7
Disclaimer: I don't own this show. Chuck Lorre owns this show.
Notes: Totally finished writing this story! Safe to say my preferred Sheldon is the one who dives into ball pits and plays the bongos. Also realized this story is satiating my desire to see Parson and Cuoco in a 30's style screwball romcom. Oh that it were so. Something along the lines of "Bringing Up Baby."
Chapter 7
Sheldon was not answering his phone.
Penny stood, freshly showered and wearing her favorite jeans and red tank top. In the middle of the their suite she gripped her phone, gawking at it in disbelief. Sheldon was being held in the back of some casino. Sheldon was in danger. Sheldon had been counting cards?
"Sheldon, don't ruin the game."
"How could he ruin the game?"
"Oh crap on a cracker!" She grabbed her keys and wallet and took off
"Plan! Plan! I need a plan!" She muttered to herself, pulling out of the hotel parking garage with a jerk. "I'm not good with plans."
Sheldon was the genius. Sheldon was the one who came up with plans. Granted, they were ridiculous plans based in the reality of some alternate dimension, but they were still plans. Leonard had said what Sheldon needed was a lawyer. Penny didn't know any lawyers (except for Priya and she was in India and Penny didn't even have her number and that would be totally weird anyway) and had no money to retain the type of lawyer that would be so readily available as to show up at a moment's notice on the strip.
Call the cops, she thought. Based on what? A third hand phone call and no real information and it would take too long to convince them. Plus she had seen too many movies. This was Vegas.
Penny had a strong desire to just go kick someone's nads in, just like with that Zarnecki guy, and get her physicist back.
But that would probably be unwise.
She felt stupid and unexpectedly heard his voice in her head.
"You're not stupid, Penny."
Okay, okay. She'd heard about this sort of thing before; card counters getting stiff talking to's or just getting banished from casinos. So why didn't they just banish him? What were they holding him for? They wouldn't actually hurt him. Not a nice family type place like that. But what if…
"Well, this is a Mortal Conundrum," she muttered.
She imagined how the game would go between them.
"I'm being held hostage by henchmen in the dark underbelly of The Wynn Hotel and Casino and you have to rescue me."
"What are my weapons?"
She talked to herself, going back and forth, trying to think like Sheldon. Which wasn't exactly easy.
Then she started to get an idea. It was a spectacularly ridiculous idea. As it came together in her mind, she tried to call back Leonard and couldn't get through. Howard wasn't answering and Raj, as far as she knew, was in India.
At The Wynn, she parked as close as she could without using the garage. She took a moment in the driver's seat when she parked and licked her lips, slipping on her shades.
"Hold on, moonpie. I'm coming."
Penny hopped out of the car, whipped out her phone, and dialed Bernadette.
"Sheldon doesn't even care about money," Howard said. "Why would he be gambling at all?"
They had been asking themselves this question for fifteen minutes.
They were squished into coach.
"Yeah, I know," Leonard said, leaning on his hand. "It's weird."
Raj took a sip of his Bloody Mary, having decided he wanted to be able to speak to the cute flight attendant. "Maybe he finally decided to buy that life sized sculpture of Han Solo in carbonite."
"Naaah," Leonard mused. "He declared that inauthentic when he figured out it's not made of actual carbonite."
"There's no such thing as carbonite," Howard said.
"Oh, he's working on that too." Leonard shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. Mercifully, the flight from L.A. to Vegas was short. "That and unobtanium."
"When we figured out Baruska took our cash, he didn't even blink," Howard muttered.
"Yeah, it wasn't losing the money that upset him, it was the part where the Diamond Hand guys caught up with us and left us in the middle of the desert in our underwear."
"And took our shoes," Howard said darkly.
"I've never seen someone's nose bleed that much," Raj said in wonderment. "I don't know how he didn't pass out."
"Rage is a real motivator."
Leonard stroked his chin. "Maybe it has something to do with Penny?"
"With Penny?" Howard shoved Raj's hand of the arm rest. "Why?"
"I don't know... She's been cagey lately. I think she's running out of money again. And Sheldon likes helping Penny."
"Sheldon doesn't like helping anybody."
"Mmm, yeah but it's different with her. They've always had sort of a...thing."
Raj and Howard's heads snapped to attention. "They have a thing," Howard said, incredulous. "What kind of a thing? Like a thing thing?"
Raj gasped. "Did Penny steal his innocence? Sort of a Summer of 42 type deal?"
"No, noooo," Leonard groaned. "Nothing like that. And Sheldon's older than her, by the way."
"Physically, yes," Howard allowed. "Emotionally, she's a cougar."
Leonard said, "Look, all I know is... Eh, never mind."
Howard glowered at him. "Oh. My. God. You know something."
"Is there something to know?" Raj's eyes got big, he sucked down his tomato-flavored vodka.
"No, there's nothing!" Leonard insisted. "Penny would kill me!"
Howard grabbed his arm. "What do you know!"
Leonard's shoulders slumped and he sighed heavily. "Okay, look. After Penny and I broke up again we had a really good conversation one night. We drank some tequila, we talked about why we're terrible together-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Howard snapped. "I bet it was a real rap session. What about Sheldon?"
"Here's the thing. She...kind of...likes him. Like like likes him."
Raj and Howard stared at him blankly.
"I'm serious," Leonard clarified.
Howard shook his head. "Mm, what? I blacked out for a second."
"I know, I know," Leonard said. "It's insane. But it's so completely insane, it might actually come all the way around the other side to being...maybe a good idea?"
"Okay, wait," Howard said, smirking. "Let's just imagine for one mind blowing moment that this actually happened... You wouldn't have a problem with it?"
"Well, normally yeah. I mean if it were you or Raj-"
"It was me for one night that will live forever," Raj said, rhapsodic.
"Shut up, Koothrappali," Howard said. "Penny spilled about that little handy dandy months ago after too much two buck Chuck. Everybody knows."
"Dammit," he muttered.
"Anyway," Leonard continued, "if it were one of you guys or pretty much anyone else, than of course I'd have a problem with it. But this is Sheldon. He's out of his gourd. If there's actually someone in the world who can not only handle his craziness but love him anyway? Who am I to stand in his way? Even if it's my ex."
Raj was crying. "Oh my God, dude! That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard!"
"Eh, besides which, if I'm still the one looking after Sheldon in twenty years, I'm going to have to kill myself. I'm thinking cyanide capsule hidden behind a tooth. So if Penny actually wants to, I say have at it."
"You sound so healthy." Howard rested his chin on his fist. "What have you been doing?"
"Deepak Chopra," Leonard said, tossing a peanut in his mouth.
Penny could swear she was being followed. She lost the guy in the suit by worming her way into a crowd of other girls her age and letting them herd her towards the back of the casino. Why she was being followed, she had no idea. But the man in grey Armani had looked at her very distinctly. Of course, it didn't help that she had a big suspicious plastic Wynn shopping bag strapped to her back. She ducked through an Employees Only door and into a dark hallway. She tried to look like she belonged there, walking with confidence, when she heard something through a door left ajar that made her freeze in her tracks.
"Fine then, I'm going to check up on The Flash situation one last time," a woman's voice said. "Apparently this guy's a real weirdo. Have they found the blonde yet?"
"Gannon just said he thought he spotted her on the floor, but he's not sure," a man said.
"So what are you waiting for? Check the cameras. I'll be back."
"The Flash..." Penny whispered.
She had the presence of mind to all but leap around the corner and hide, just as the woman strode into the hallway and stalked away, her heels clicking on the hard floor. Penny crept after her and peeked around a corner to see her knock softly at a door and talk to somebody. She looked irritated. The woman whipped around and Penny ducked back. She'd have to assume that Sheldon was in that room. It was all she had to go on.
"Hey! You can't be in here!"
Penny squeaked at a shout that echoed through the corridor, dashed down a hallway in the opposite direction of where Sheldon was possibly being held and around yet another corner. A door said Women's Locker Room and she ducked inside. A redheaded cocktail waitress was putting her hair up and she gaped at Penny, bewildered.
Penny ran up to her and whipped out her wallet.
"Hi," she said breathlessly. "This might sound weird... But I will give you a five hundred dollar Dior gift card if you take off all your clothes."
"Soooo allowing for the statistical probability of failure over success, if you scrambled the contents at irregular intervals preceding presentation, you'd have a much higher retention rate-"
The big guy slapped Sheldon in the back. Sheldon had been scribbling equations on a napkin and he dropped his pen.
"Doc," the big guy growled. "We didn't ask you to fix our card tables."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?" He crossed his arms. "Good Lord. I was trying to teach you people how to mix a decent Shirley Temple. You're driving your patrons away in veritable droves."
"We're getting nowhere," the blonde guy groaned.
"Look, doc," the short guy said, "we just want to know where the rest of your team is gaming so we can all have a little chat and make sure you boys know not to count here or at any of our affiliated establishments. Or things might start to get uncomfortable."
"They can't get much more uncomfortable than this chair," Sheldon said. "The lumbar support has no give at all for the natural curvature of my spine. The back rest is far too narrow. If you three are forced to sit in similar models, I would register a complaint with OSHA."
"WHERE ARE THE X-MEN!"
"They're not here," Sheldon insisted, flinching. He had no intention of telling the men that he had alerted his friends to his predicament, though he had little faith they'd be able to assist him if they tried. And they probably wouldn't. "Leona- I mean, Cyclops, is in Los Angeles. As is Ice Man. And Nightcrawler is in India kowtowing to his parent's culturally stereotypical wishes in exchange for ongoing trust fund payments."
"Fine," the short guy said. "Give us their names then."
Sheldon twitched. "Bobby Drake, Scott Summers-"
"That's it!" The short guy said. "I say we turn his face into hamburger."
"Oh, no no no," Sheldon said shakily. "You don't want to do that. For one thing it will ruin my taste for hamburgers. Might I suggest a good old fashioned pantsing? Or the ever classic swirly? Of the two, I'd prefer a pantsing. Much more sanitary!"
"I'll hold him," the short one said. He nodded at the big one. "You go to work. If you believe in God, doc, you might want to start praying."
"I believe Han shot first," Sheldon babbled. "Other then that I officially subscribe to no religious dogma."
"Do it."
"Before I meet my demise, could I possibly have my last words recorded for posterity? I haven't had the chance to have them laminated on a wallet sized card yet!"
"No!"
"Candy cigarette?"
"I'll kill him just to shut him up!" The short one growled. He came around Sheldon and yanked him back in his chair. The big one stomped over in his direction, glaring.
Sheldon shut his eyes. "Please try to avoid my frontal lobe! And my occipital lobe! If you could just avoid the brain altogether, I'd appreciate it!"
The big guy reared his massive fist back and then there was a knock at the door. Everybody groaned, except for Sheldon who peed just a tiny bit.
The blonde one sighed and answered the door, exchanged what sounded like heated words, and turned around, shrugging.
"Says there's a message from the floor..."
A woman walked in holding papers in front of her face. She shut the door and dropped the papers, letting them scatter.
"Yes, there is!" It was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But it wasn't. It was better, because it was Penny. Except she was dressed like a Wynn cocktail waitress in the uniform brown minidress. "Get your damn hands off my physicist!"
"Hey, it's her." The big one said simply.
Sheldon forgot his name rule and said, "Penny? What are you doing here?"
"Saving your ass, sweetie," Penny said. "Shut your trap."
"Unlikely," the big one said.
"Um, what are you gonna do about it, girly girl?" The short one said. "You think you can just waltz in here and take him?"
Sheldon said, "Penny, when did you become a cocktail waitress?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, honey."
"Baby doll," the blonde guy said, "this is Vegas. I don't think things work the way you think they work-"
"Oh, please." She crossed her arms and glared at the men like they were nothing more than troublesome customers at The Cheesecake Factory. "This is literally not my first rodeo. Can I ask what your plans are for my friend?"
"We just want the names of his compatriots. And their locations. Then he can go. Long as we never see him again."
"Compatriots?" Penny frowned.
The short guy held up a picture of Leonard.
"The X-men!" He said. "Who the hell is Cyclops?"
Penny valiantly stifled a laugh and then her expression shifted and she gave Sheldon a long look. Sheldon couldn't read it, but if he'd had a guess, it might've been admiration.
"And if he doesn't?" She said. "Will you continue to hold him against his will? Is he under threat of physical harm?"
"He's under threat of whatever we decide he's under threat of!"
"That's a terribly constructed sentence," Sheldon mumbled.
Penny pointed at him. "Zip it." She smiled slyly. "Look, fellas. I just want to know if it's Wynn Hotel policy to intimidate customers with threats of physical violence, particularly as card counting is not even illegal in the state of Nevada."
Sheldon started to smile.
"It is if we say so!" The short guy said.
"As employees of Wynn?"
"Why not?"
The big one threw his hands in the air and glared at the short one. "Hell is wrong with you? You know better!"
The short guy snarled. "Oh, what's she gonna do?"
"Oh, I'm so glad you said that." She whipped her iPhone out of the front of her cocktail waitress's bustier. "You get all that, Joan?"
A woman's voice chirped through the phone. "Got it, Penny!"
"See, I've got Joan Pryce Esquire of the firm of Higgs, Hawking, and Feynman of Beverly Hills on the phone and she's recording every single word. Her client is one Lee Cooper, B.S. M.S. M.A. Ph.D. Sc.D., noted theoretical physicist and...shortlisted for the Nobel Prize!"
Sheldon rose an eyebrow.
The voice on the phone said, "If you don't release my client immediately, I believe we have enough evidence to sue the pants off of of the Wynn Corporation. Legally speaking."
The three guys in suits all looked at each other, gobsmacked.
Penny cleared her throat. "Queen Penelope. For the win."
The short one said, "You know what? All you guys are punks. Fine. I'm out. I'm going back to Circus Circus."
The short guy left.
"I don't believe this." The blonde one said. "She's bluffing! She could have anybody on that phone. These guys are pros. He's no physi-whatever. He's a scam artist!" He nodded at the big one. "Grab her."
Sheldon shot out of his seat. "Don't hurt her!"
The big guy approached and Penny shrugged, tucking her phone back into her bra. "On to Plan B then."
Penny reached over her shoulder and pulled out the large object strapped to her back. She whipped off the plastic to reveal the paintball gun. She smirked at the men.
The blonde guy said, "Girly, that's a paintball gun."
"Yeah, and that's a three thousand dollar suit, if I know my couture," Penny said, aiming the gun in her direction. "And I do."
The big guy took a couple steps in her direction. "That's not going to stop us, hon. Hate to tell ya."
"It'll leave some wicked welts," she cracked. "And if you take another step you're either gonna have to hit a girl or get hit by one. And I will so kick your ass just like I kicked Skullsplitter's ass and those damn barbarian bastards! I don't care how many regens it takes!"
The big one stopped in his tracks and rose his eyebrows. "You play Age of Conan?"
