Teresa Lopez accompanied Penny back into the hospital room where the doctor and two nurses continued to work on Leonard. Penny stood next to the bed with her hand on Leonard's arm. She seemed unwilling to lose physical contact with him.

After a few minutes the doctor said softly to her, "He's got a lot of damage to his trachea, a couple of broken ribs, and a broken finger. But it's nothing permanent. The trachea could take a while to heal, and he won't be doing much talking for a couple of weeks. We just need to wait for him to regain consciousness, because I want to check that there's been no other damage."

Leonard stirred and groaned. Penny winced as if the pain were hers. "Can't you give him something for the pain? He's suffering so much."

"I don't want to do that until he's responsive. I need to test his cognitive function and eye movement before I give him anything. But I promise, then I'll give him enough painkiller to make him comfortable."

Penny looked doubtful, but nodded. She pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down, again resting her hand on Leonard's arm. The doctor looked at Penny and smiled. "We're leaving now, but if you see anything that worries you, just press the call button and we'll come running. I'll check back in fifteen minutes."

Lopez crouched down to be at Penny's level. "Penny, I really need to talk to you. We still don't have a clear picture of what happened, and I want to get it before memories start to fade. Can we go next door and talk?"

Penny shook her head. "I'm staying here. I owe it to Leonard. I don't want to let him out of my sight."

Lopez sighed. "All right. I understand. Let's talk here," she said, pulling a chair over to the corner and beckoning for Penny to join her. Reluctantly, Penny moved her chair away from the bed and to the corner where she and Lopez sat. The officer took out her notebook.

"So what happened?" Lopez asked.

Penny looked at her and told the story: how they were on their way to Las Vegas to get married, how the car broke down, how Leonard went to get it the next morning, how Donny lured her into the motel office.

"How stupid was that?" Penny said bitterly. "I walked right into it."

"Don't blame yourself," Lopez said, "there was no way you could have known."

Penny went on, narrating the rest of the events. When she got to the part where Donny and Lenny crashed in the front office, she stopped. "I don't actually know what happened there, other than that Donny was stabbed with something."

Lopez smiled. "Well, your fiancé managed to stick about a foot of a tire iron right through Donny's guts. Messed him up good. I'm afraid it also did a number on Leonard's hands and chest. But I still can't quite figure how the tire iron penetrated so far."

The young woman said simply, "Mass times velocity equals momentum. Donny was huge and he was moving fast." Penny glanced over at the bed and thought to herself how proud Leonard would be of her for knowing about momentum, and how she had to remember to tell him.

Lopez looked surprised. "Are you a scientist or something?"

Penny laughed a little. "I'm only a something. But Leonard is an experimental physicist at Caltech."

"Oh," said Lopez. "I don't really know what that means."

"It means," Penny said, trying hard to remember Amy's wording, "that he takes theories and designs protocols to test their hypotheses."

Lopez looked at her again. "Umm, I don't really know what that means either."

Penny smiled again and said, "I don't actually understand it myself. I just know the words. Anyway, he's a physicist."

Lopez asked her to finish with the narrative of the events of the morning. Penny explained about the bathroom, the baseball bat and the rest, and then was silent.

"Penny," Lopez said gently, "are you sure that Donny didn't molest you in any way? Sometimes girls are afraid to admit they've been assaulted."

Penny looked at the officer curiously. "No, he didn't get the chance. He was going to…well, to rape me, but Leonard got there in time," she finished with pride.

Lopez looked at her again. "You know you have a lot of bruising on your arms and I can see some on your shoulder. Do you mind if one of the doctors takes a look at you?"

"All right, if they come here. I don't want to leave Leonard. Oh, and can you bring me my purse and Leonard's glasses? I think you got them from the motel."

Lopez nodded as she left the room, and found the doctor who had worked on Leonard. "Doc," she said, "can you take a look at the young woman with him? She says she's all right but she's practically in a state of shock and I think she may have some injuries. Just do it without making a big deal. She's scared enough as it is."

The doctor walked back to the room and looked carefully at Leonard and the monitors. As if it were an afterthought, he turned to Penny and said, "I think I should take a quick look at you, too, to make sure there aren't any injuries to tend to."

Penny sighed, "I know Teri sent you. All right, go ahead."

"Do you mind taking off your shirt?" the doctor asked, closing the blinds of the room to give her some privacy.

Penny removed her shirt and the doctor looked carefully at her arms and torso. He palpated her back and upper chest, and Penny grimaced. After a few moments, he stopped and handed back her shirt.

"You have a lot of bruising on your arms and elsewhere. I'd feel more comfortable if we took some X-rays. Can I get you to go down to radiology for just a few minutes?"

"I'm fine," Penny insisted firmly. "Once Leonard is awake and we've talked I will do whatever you want. For now, I'm staying here."

The doctor nodded. "All right, but I want you to promise to get those X rays taken eventually.'

"I promise," Penny said, as the doctor left the room.

Officer Lopez returned with Penny's purse and Leonard's glasses. Penny started to put the glasses on Leonard, but then decided against it. She took out her phone and looked at it. There were a few messages; four missed calls from Bernadette; two from Amy; eight from Sheldon. They must be wondering where the two of them were. Probably Sheldon had told them that they must be married by now. She shook her head when she remembered that it had all begun less than 24 hours before. It seemed like so much longer….

"Excuse me, office…Teri, do you think you could go back to the motel and bring me my phone charger? Our friends must be worried about us and my phone is just about out of juice."

Lopez looked dubious. "You and Leonard are probably going to be here for a couple of days. We'll have plenty of time to pick up your things at the motel once you're willing to leave him. You can always use the hospital phone to call if you need to. For now Officer Brennan and I are going to stay here with you until our shift is over. That's a few more hours," she said, glancing at the clock on the room wall.

Penny looked with her and was surprised to see that it was only 2.15. To her it felt like several days had gone by since she had woken up in the motel bed. She nodded.

"Can I bring you something to eat or drink?" Lopez asked. Penny shook her head. "What about a more comfortable chair?" Penny nodded, and Lopez went into the hallway. She found a recliner two rooms down and rolled it down to Penny. They positioned it next to Leonard's bed and Penny plumped back down, once more resting her hand on Leonard's arm.

"Get some rest, Penny. You must be exhausted," Lopez said kindly.

Lopez and Brennan stood guard outside the hospital room. Lopez hadn't told Penny that as both victims of and material witnesses to attempted rape and homicide, especially when the suspect was a well-connected local criminal, they were under police guard. But she didn't mind waiting for Leonard to wake up so that he and Penny could be reunited. She looked into the room through the small window on the door and saw Penny sleeping in the recliner next to Leonard's bed. With the ceiling light shining dimly on him he looked like a wounded warrior, and with her hand still resting on his arm she looked like his guardian angel. Lopez felt a warm glow as she looked in on the two. She couldn't remember being so much in love – not that she didn't love her husband and sons, but the first few years had been a long time ago. Being young and in love was special, she thought. Even if your lover was unconscious and nearly dead, she mused, a bit more cynically.